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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Europa's Fairy Book, by Joseph Jacobs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Europa's Fairy Book
+
+Author: Joseph Jacobs
+
+Illustrator: John D. Batten
+
+Release Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #26019]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EUROPA'S FAIRY BOOK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, David Edwards, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ EUROPA'S
+
+ FAIRY TALES
+
+
+
+ "_Do tell us a fairy tale, ganpa._"
+
+ "_Well, will you be good and quiet if I do?_"
+
+ "_Of course we will; we are always good when you are telling
+ us fairy tales._"
+
+ "_Well, here goes.--Once upon a time, though it wasn't in my
+ time, and it wasn't in your time, and it wasn't in anybody
+ else's time, there was a----_"
+
+ "_But that would be no time at all._"
+
+ "_That's fairy tale time._"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: _The Marshal tells how he killed the Dragon_]
+
+
+EUROPA'S
+
+FAIRY BOOK
+
+
+
+RESTORED AND RETOLD BY
+
+JOSEPH JACOBS
+
+
+
+DONE INTO PICTURES BY
+
+JOHN D. BATTEN
+
+
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+
+The Knickerbocker Press
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1916
+
+BY
+
+JOSEPH JACOBS
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+To
+
+PEGGY, AND MADGE, AND PEARL, AND MAGGIE,
+AND MARGUERITE, AND PEGGOTTY, AND MEG,
+AND MARJORY, AND DAISY, AND PEGG, AND
+
+MARGARET HAYS
+
+(How many granddaughters does that make?)
+
+
+MY DEAR LITTLE PEGGY:--
+
+Many, many, many years ago I wrote a book for your Mummey--when she
+was my little May--telling the fairy tales which the little boys and
+girls of England used to hear from their mummeys, who had heard them
+from their mummeys years and years and years before. My friend Mr.
+Batten made such pretty pictures for it--but of course you know the
+book--it has "Tom, Tit, Tot" and "The little old woman that went to
+market," and all those tales you like. Now I have been making a
+fairy-tale book for your own self, and here it is. This time I have
+told, again the fairy tales that all the mummeys of Europe have been
+telling their little Peggys, Oh for ever so many years! They must have
+liked them because they have spread from Germany to Russia, from Italy
+to France, from Holland to Scotland, and from England to Norway, and
+from every country in Europe that you will read about in your
+geography to every other one. Mr. Batten, who made the pictures for
+your mummey's book, has made some more for yours--isn't it good of
+him when he has never seen you?
+
+Though this book is your very, very own, you will not mind if other
+little girls and boys also get copies of it from their mummeys and
+papas and ganmas and ganpas, for when you meet some of them you will,
+all of you, have a number of common friends like "The Cinder-Maid," or
+"The Earl of Cattenborough," or "The Master-Maid," and you can talk to
+one another about them so that you are old friends at once. Oh, won't
+that be nice? And when one of these days you go over the Great Sea, in
+whatever land you go, you will find girls and boys, as well as
+grown-ups, who will know all of these tales, even if they have
+different names. Won't that be nice too?
+
+And when you tell your new friends here or abroad of these stories
+that you and they will know so well, do not forget to tell them that
+you have a book, all of your very own, which was made up specially for
+you of these old, old stories by your old, old
+
+GANPA.
+
+P.S.--Do you hear me calling as I always do, "Peggy, Peggy"? Then you
+must answer as usual, "Ganpa, Ganpa."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Ever since--almost exactly a hundred years ago--the Grimms produced
+their Fairy Tale Book, folk-lorists have been engaged in making
+similar collections for all the other countries of Europe, outside
+Germany, till there is scarcely a nook or a corner in the whole
+continent that has not been ransacked for these products of the
+popular fancy. The Grimms themselves and most of their followers have
+pointed out the similarity or, one might even say, the identity of
+plot and incident of many of these tales throughout the European
+Folk-Lore field. Von Hahn, when collecting the Greek and Albanian
+Fairy Tales in 1864, brought together these common "formulæ" of the
+European Folk-Tale. These were supplemented by Mr. S. Baring-Gould in
+1868, and I myself in 1892 contributed an even fuller list to the
+_Hand Book of Folk-Lore_. Most, if not all of these formulæ, have been
+found in all the countries of Europe where folk-tales have been
+collected. In 1893 Miss M. Roalfe Cox brought together, in a volume of
+the Folk-Lore Society, no less than 345 variants of "Cinderella" and
+kindred stories showing how widespread this particular formula was
+throughout Europe and how substantially identical the various
+incidents as reproduced in each particular country.
+
+It has occurred to me that it would be of great interest and, for
+folk-lore purposes, of no little importance, to bring together these
+common Folk-Tales of Europe, retold in such a way as to bring out the
+original form from which all the variants were derived. I am, of
+course, aware of the difficulty and hazardous nature of such a
+proceeding; yet it is fundamentally the same as that by which scholars
+are accustomed to restore the _Ur_-text from the variants of different
+families of MSS. and still more similar to the process by which Higher
+Critics attempt to restore the original narratives of Holy Writ. Every
+one who has had to tell fairy tales to children will appreciate the
+conservative tendencies of the child mind; every time you vary an
+incident the children will cry out, "That was not the way you told us
+before." The Folk-Tale collections can therefore be assumed to retain
+the original readings with as much fidelity as most MSS. That there
+was such an original rendering eminating from a single folk artist no
+serious student of Miss Cox's volume can well doubt. When one finds
+practically the same "tags" of verse in such different dialects as
+Danish and Romaic, German and Italian, one cannot imagine that these
+sprang up independently in Denmark, Greece, Germany, and Florence. The
+same phenomenon is shown in another field of Folk-Lore where, as the
+late Mr. Newell showed, the same rhymes are used to brighten up the
+same children's games in Barcelona and in Boston; one cannot imagine
+them springing up independently in both places. So, too, when the same
+incidents of a fairy tale follow in the same artistic concatenation in
+Scotland, and in Sicily, in Brittany, and in Albania, one cannot but
+assume that the original form of the story was hit upon by one
+definite literary artist among the folk. What I have attempted to do
+in this book is to restore the original form, which by a sort of
+international selection has spread throughout all the European folks.
+
+But while I have attempted thus to restore the original substance of
+the European Folk-Tales, I have ever had in mind that the particular
+form in which they are to appear is to attract English-speaking
+children. I have, therefore, utilized the experience I had some years
+ago in collecting and retelling the Fairy Tales of the English
+Folk-Lore field (_English Fairy Tales_, _More English Fairy Tales_),
+in order to tell these new tales in the way which English-speaking
+children have abundantly shown they enjoy. In other words, while the
+plot and incidents are "common form" throughout Europe, the manner in
+which I have told the stories is, so far as I have been able to
+imitate it, that of the English story-teller.
+
+I have indeed been conscious throughout of my audience of little ones
+and of the reverence due to them. Whenever an original incident, so
+far as I could penetrate to it, seemed to me too crudely primitive for
+the children of the present day, I have had no scruples in modifying
+or mollifying it, drawing attention to such Bowdlerization in the
+somewhat elaborate notes at the end of the volume, which I trust will
+be found of interest and of use to the serious student of the
+Folk-Tale.
+
+It must, of course, be understood that the tales I now give are only
+those found practically identical in all European countries. Besides
+these there are others which are peculiar to each of the countries or
+only found in areas covered by cognate languages like the Celtic or
+the Scandinavian. Of these I have already covered the English and the
+Celtic fields, and may, one of these days, extend my collections to
+the French and Scandinavian or the Slavonic fields. Meanwhile it may
+be assumed that the stories that have pleased all European children
+for so long a time are, by a sort of international selection, best
+fitted to survive, and that the Fairy Tales that follow are the
+choicest gems in the Fairy Tale field. I can only express the hope
+that I have succeeded in placing them in an appropriate setting.
+
+It remains only to thank those of my colleagues and friends who have
+aided in various ways in the preparation of this volume, though of
+course their co-operation does not, in the slightest, imply
+responsibility for or approval of the method of treatment I have
+applied to the old, old stories. Miss Roalfe Cox was good enough to
+look over my reconstruction of "Cinderella" and suggest alterations in
+it. Prof. Crane gave me permission to utilize the version of the
+"Dancing Water," in his Italian Popular Tales. Sir James G. Frazer
+looked through my restoration of the "Language of Animals," which was
+suggested by him many years ago; and Mr. E. S. Hartland criticized the
+Swan-Maiden story. I have also to thank my old friend and publisher,
+Dr. G. H. Putnam, for the personal interest he has taken in the
+progress of the book.
+
+J. J.
+
+YONKERS, N. Y.
+
+July, 1915.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+PREFACE v
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
+
+I.--CINDER-MAID 1
+
+II.--ALL CHANGE 13
+
+III.--THE KING OF THE FISHES 19
+
+IV.--SCISSORS 31
+
+V.--BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 34
+
+VI.--REYNARD AND BRUIN 42
+
+VII.--THE DANCING WATER, SINGING APPLE, AND SPEAKING BIRD 51
+
+VIII.--THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS 66
+
+IX.--THE THREE SOLDIERS 72
+
+X.--A DOZEN AT A BLOW 81
+
+XI.--THE EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH 90
+
+XII.--THE SWAN MAIDENS 98
+
+XIII.--ANDROCLES AND THE LION 107
+
+XIV.--DAY DREAMING 110
+
+XV.--KEEP COOL 115
+
+XVI.--THE MASTER THIEF 121
+
+XVII.--THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM 129
+
+XVIII.--THE MASTER-MAID 142
+
+XIX.--A VISITOR FROM PARADISE 159
+
+XX.--INSIDE AGAIN 165
+
+XXI.--JOHN THE TRUE 170
+
+XXII.--JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE 180
+
+XXIII.--THE CLEVER LASS 188
+
+XXIV.--THUMBKIN 194
+
+XXV.--SNOWWHITE 201
+
+NOTES 215
+
+LIST OF INCIDENTS 263
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+THE MARSHAL TELLS HOW HE KILLED THE DRAGON
+ _Frontispiece_
+
+THE HERALD ANNOUNCES THE COURT BALL 1
+
+THE SOLDIER LAYS A HONEY TRAP 6
+
+THE STEP-SISTER CUTS OFF HER TOE 9
+
+"WILL YOU MIND MY PEA?" 13
+
+THE SEVEN-HEADED DRAGON 19
+
+THE MARSHAL TELLS HOW HE KILLED THE DRAGON 25
+
+SCISSORS 31
+
+BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 39
+
+REYNARD 42
+
+BRUIN GETS A BEATING 45
+
+BRUIN CARRIES REYNARD 46
+
+THE FOSTER MOTHER 55
+
+THE KING BEGS PARDON 64
+
+THE GIRL AND THE FROG 66
+
+THE POPE IS ELECTED 70
+
+THE MAGIC PURSE 73
+
+THE PRINCESS FINDS HORNS ON HER HEAD 79
+
+THE UNICORN 81
+
+THE EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH WILL BE PLEASED TO PARTAKE OF A POTATO 90
+
+THE CAT AND THE OGRE 96
+
+"HAD YOU NOT BETTER THROW ME INTO THE MILLSTREAM?" 97
+
+THE CHILD FINDS THE FEATHER DRESS 98
+
+THE DOLPHIN WHO CAME LATE 102
+
+EAST O' THE SUN AND WEST O' THE MOON 105
+
+ANDROCLES AND THE LION 107
+
+DAY-DREAMING 110
+
+THE PIG'S TAIL 120
+
+THE DUMMY 121
+
+ANIMA GOES DOWN THE HOLE 129
+
+THE LAMP 133
+
+THE DOG 139
+
+THE CASKET 140
+
+THE MASTER-MAID WITH THE GLASS AXE 142
+
+THE PRINCE WANTS HIS LUNCH 145
+
+THE GIANT TRIES TO DRINK THE STREAM 154
+
+THE VISITOR 159
+
+UP THE TREE 163
+
+THE SNAKE 165
+
+THE THREE RAVENS 170
+
+THE WOUNDED DRAGON 179
+
+THE WITCH 180
+
+THE DUCK 187
+
+"MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL, WHO IS THE FAIREST OF US ALL?" 201
+
+SNOWWHITE AND THE THREE DWARFS 211
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Herald Announces the Court Ball]
+
+THE CINDER-MAID
+
+
+Once upon a time, though it was not in my time or in your time, or in
+anybody else's time, there was a great King who had an only son, the
+Prince and Heir who was about to come of age. So the King sent round a
+herald who should blow his trumpet at every four corners where two
+roads met. And when the people came together he would call out, "O
+yes, O yes, O yes, know ye that His Grace the King will give on Monday
+sennight"--that meant seven nights or a week after--"a Royal Ball to
+which all maidens of noble birth are hereby summoned; and be it
+furthermore known unto you that at this ball his Highness the Prince
+will select unto himself a lady that shall be his bride and our future
+Queen. God save the King."
+
+Now there was among the nobles of the King's Court one who had married
+twice, and by the first marriage he had but one daughter, and as she
+was growing up her father thought that she ought to have some one to
+look after her. So he married again, a lady with two daughters, and
+his new wife, instead of caring for his daughter, thought only of her
+own and favoured them in every way. She would give them beautiful
+dresses but none to her step-daughter who had only to wear the
+cast-off clothes of the other two. The noble's daughter was set to do
+all the drudgery of the house, to attend the kitchen fire, and had
+naught to sleep on but the heap of cinders raked out in the scullery;
+and that is why they called her Cinder-Maid. And no one took pity on
+her and she would go and weep at her mother's grave where she had
+planted a hazel tree, under which she sat.
+
+You can imagine how excited they all were when they heard the King's
+proclamation called out by the herald. "What shall we wear, mother;
+what shall we wear?" cried out the two daughters, and they all began
+talking about which dress should suit the one and what dress should
+suit the other, but when the father suggested that Cinder-Maid should
+also have a dress they all cried out: "What, Cinder-Maid going to the
+King's Ball; why, look at her, she would only disgrace us all." And
+so her father held his peace.
+
+Now when the night came for the Royal Ball Cinder-Maid had to help the
+two sisters to dress in their fine dresses and saw them drive off in
+the carriage with her father and their mother. But she went to her own
+mother's grave and sat beneath the hazel tree and wept and cried out:
+
+ "Tree o'mine, O tree o'me,
+ With my tears I've watered thee;
+ Make me a lady fair to see,
+ Dress me as splendid as can be."
+
+And with that the little bird on the tree called out to her,
+
+ "Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree,
+ Open the first nut that you see."
+
+So Cinder-Maid shook the tree and the first nut that fell she took up
+and opened, and what do you think she saw?--a beautiful silk dress
+blue as the heavens, all embroidered with stars, and two little lovely
+shoon made of shining copper. And when she had dressed herself the
+hazel tree opened and from it came a coach all made of copper with
+four milk-white horses, with coachman and footmen all complete. And as
+she drove away the little bird called out to her:
+
+ "Be home, be home ere mid-o'night
+ Or else again you'll be a fright."
+
+When Cinder-Maid entered the ball-room she was the loveliest of all
+the ladies and the Prince, who had been dancing with her step-sisters,
+would only dance with her. But as it came towards midnight Cinder-Maid
+remembered what the little bird had told her and slipped away to her
+carriage. And when the Prince missed her he went to the guards at the
+Palace door and told them to follow the carriage. But Cinder-Maid when
+she saw this, called out:
+
+ "Mist behind and light before,
+ Guide me to my father's door."
+
+And when the Prince's soldiers tried to follow her there came such a
+mist that they couldn't see their hands before their faces. So they
+couldn't find which way Cinder-Maid went.
+
+When her father and step-mother and two sisters came home after the
+ball they could talk of nothing but the lovely lady: "Ah, would not
+you have liked to have been there?" said the sisters to Cinder-Maid as
+she helped them to take off their fine dresses. "There was a most
+lovely lady with a dress like the heavens and shoes of bright copper,
+and the Prince would dance with none but her; and when midnight came
+she disappeared and the Prince could not find her. He is going to give
+a second ball in the hope that she will come again. Perhaps she will
+not, and then we will have our chance."
+
+When the time of the second Royal Ball came round the same thing
+happened as before; the sisters teased Cinder-Maid saying, "Wouldn't
+you like to come with us?" and drove off again as before. And
+Cinder-Maid went again to the hazel tree over her mother's grave and
+cried:
+
+ "Tree o'mine, O tree o'me,
+ Shiver and shake, dear little tree
+ Make me a lady fair to see,
+ Dress me as splendid as can be."
+
+And then the little bird on the tree called out:
+
+ "Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree,
+ Open the first nut that you see."
+
+But this time she found a dress all golden brown like the earth
+embroidered with flowers, and her shoon were made of silver; and when
+the carriage came from the tree, lo and behold, that was made of
+silver too, drawn by black horses with trappings all of silver, and
+the lace on the coachman's and footmen's liveries was also of silver;
+and when Cinder-Maid went to the ball the Prince would dance with none
+but her; and when midnight came round she fled as before. But the
+Prince, hoping to prevent her running away, had ordered the soldiers
+at the foot of the stair-case to pour out honey on the stairs so that
+her shoes would stick in it. But Cinder-Maid leaped from stair to
+stair and got away just in time, calling out as the soldiers tried to
+follow her:
+
+ "Mist behind and light before,
+ Guide me to my father's door."
+
+[Illustration: The Soldier Lays a Honey Trap]
+
+And when her sisters got home they told her once more of the beautiful
+lady that had come in a silver coach and silver shoon and in a dress
+all embroidered with flowers: "Ah, wouldn't you have liked to have
+been there?" said they.
+
+Once again the Prince gave a great ball in the hope that his unknown
+beauty would come to it. All happened as before; as soon as the
+sisters had gone Cinder-Maid went to the hazel tree over her mother's
+grave and called out:
+
+ "Tree o'mine, O tree o'me
+ Shiver and quiver, dear little tree;
+ Make me a lady fair to see,
+ Dress me as splendid as can be."
+
+And then the little bird appeared and said:
+
+ "Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, shake the tree
+ Open the first nut that you see."
+
+And when she opened the nut in it was a dress of silk green as the sea
+with waves upon it, and her shoes this time were made of gold; and
+when the coach came out of the tree it was also made of gold, with
+gold trappings for the horses and for the retainers. And as she drove
+off the little bird from the tree called out:
+
+ "Be home, be home ere mid-o'night
+ Or else again you'll be a fright."
+
+Now this time, when Cinder-Maid came to the ball, she was as desirous
+to dance only with the Prince as he with her, and so, when midnight
+came round, she had forgotten to leave till the clock began to strike,
+one--two--three--four--five--six,--and then she began to run away down
+the stairs as the clock struck, eight--nine--ten. But the Prince had
+told his soldiers to put tar upon the lower steps of the stairs; and
+as the clock struck eleven her shoes stuck in the tar, and when she
+jumped to the foot of the stairs one of her golden shoes was left
+behind, and just then the clock struck TWELVE, and the golden coach,
+with its horses and footmen, disappeared, and the beautiful dress of
+Cinder-Maid changed again into her ragged clothes and she had to run
+home with only one golden shoe.
+
+You can imagine how excited the sisters were when they came home and
+told Cinder-Maid all about it, how that the beautiful lady had come in
+a golden coach in a dress like the sea, with golden shoes, and how all
+had disappeared at midnight except the golden shoe. "Ah, wouldn't you
+have liked to have been there?" said they.
+
+Now when the Prince found out that he could not keep his lady-love nor
+trace where she had gone he spoke to his father and showed him the
+golden shoe, and told him that he would never marry any one but the
+maiden who could wear that shoe. So the King, his father, ordered the
+herald to take round the golden shoe upon a velvet cushion and to go
+to every four corners where two streets met and sound the trumpet and
+call out: "O yes, O yes, O yes, be it known unto you all that
+whatsoever lady of noble birth can fit this shoe upon her foot shall
+become the bride of his Highness the Prince and our future Queen. God
+save the King."
+
+[Illustration: The Step-Sister Cuts off her Toe]
+
+And when the herald came to the house of Cinder-Maid's father the
+eldest of her two step-sisters tried on the golden shoe. But it was
+much too small for her, as it was for every other lady that had tried
+it up to that time; but she went up into her room and with a sharp
+knife cut off one of her toes and part of her heel, and then fitted
+her foot into the shoe, and when she came down she showed it to the
+herald, who sent a message to the Palace saying that the lady had been
+found who could wear the golden shoe. Thereupon the Prince jumped at
+once upon his horse and rode to the house of Cinder-Maid's father. But
+when he saw the step-sister with the golden shoe, "Ah," he said, "but
+this is not the lady." "But," she said, "you promised to marry the one
+that could wear the golden shoe." And the Prince could say nothing,
+but offered to take her on his horse to his father's Palace, for in
+those days ladies used to ride on a pillion at the back of the
+gentleman riding on horseback. Now as they were riding towards the
+Palace her foot began to drip with blood, and the little bird from the
+hazel tree that had followed them called out:
+
+ "Turn and peep, turn and peep,
+ There's blood within the shoe;
+ A bit is cut from off the heel
+ And a bit from off the toe."
+
+And the Prince looked down and saw the blood streaming from her shoe
+and then he knew that this was not his true bride, and he rode back to
+the house of Cinder-Maid's father; and then the second sister tried
+her chance; but when she found that her foot wouldn't fit the shoe she
+did the same as her sister, but all happened as before. The little
+bird called out:
+
+ "Turn and peep, turn and peep,
+ There's blood within the shoe;
+ A bit is cut from off the heel
+ And a bit from off the toe."
+
+And the Prince took her back to her mother's house, and then he asked,
+"Have you no other daughter?" and the sisters cried out, "No, sir."
+But the father said, "Yes, I have another daughter." And the sisters
+cried out, "Cinder-Maid, Cinder-Maid, she could not wear that shoe."
+But the Prince said, "As she is of noble birth she has a right to try
+the shoe." So the herald went down to the kitchen and found
+Cinder-Maid; and when she saw her golden shoe she took it from him and
+put it on her foot, which it fitted exactly; and then she took the
+other golden shoe from underneath the cinders where she had hidden it
+and put that on too. Then the herald knew that she was the true bride
+of his master; and he took her upstairs to where the Prince was; when
+he saw her face, he knew that she was the lady of his love. So he
+took her behind him upon his horse; and as they rode to the Palace,
+the little bird from the hazel tree cried out:
+
+ "Some cut their heel, and some cut their toe,
+ But she sat by the fire who could wear the shoe."
+
+And so they were married and lived happy ever afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Will you Mind my Pea?"]
+
+ALL CHANGE
+
+
+There was once a man who was the laziest man in all the world. He
+wouldn't take off his clothes when he went to bed because he didn't
+want to have to put them on again. He wouldn't raise his cup to his
+lips but went down and sucked up his tea without carrying the cup. He
+wouldn't play any sports because he said they made him sweat. And he
+wouldn't work with his hands for the same reason. But at last he found
+that he couldn't get anything to eat unless he did some work for it.
+So he hired himself out to a farmer for the season. But all through
+the harvest he ate as much and he worked as little as he could; and
+when the fall came and he went to get his wages from his master all he
+got was a single pea. "What do you mean by giving me this?" he said to
+his master. "Why, that is all that your labor is worth," was the
+reply. "You have eaten as much as you have earned." "None of your
+lip," said the man; "give me my pea; at any rate I have earned that."
+So when he got it he went to an inn by the roadside and said to the
+landlady, "Can you give me lodging for the night, me and my pea?"
+"Well, no," said the landlady, "I haven't got a bed free, but I can
+take care of your pea for you." No sooner said than done. The pea was
+lodged with the landlady, and the laziest man went and lay in a barn
+near-by.
+
+The landlady put the pea upon a dresser and left it there, and a
+chicken wandering by saw it and jumped up on the dresser and ate it.
+So when the laziest man called the next day and asked for his pea the
+landlady couldn't find it. She said, "The chicken must have swallowed
+it." "Well, I want my pea," said the man. "You had better give me the
+chicken." "Why, what--when--how?" stammered the landlady. "The chicken
+is worth thousands of your pea." "I don't care for that; it has got my
+pea inside it, and the only way I can get my pea is to have that which
+holds the pea." "What, give you my chicken for a single pea,
+nonsense!" "Well, if you don't I'll summon you before the justice."
+"Ah, well, take the chicken and my bad wishes with it."
+
+So off went the man and sauntered along all day, till that night he
+came to another inn, and asked the landlord if he and his chicken
+could stop there. He said, "No, no, we have no room for you, but we
+can put your chicken in the stable if you like." So the man said,
+"Yes," and went off for the night. But there was a savage sow in the
+stable, and during the night she ate up the poor chicken. And when the
+man came the next morning he said to the landlord, "Please give me my
+chicken." "I am awfully sorry, sir," said he, "but my sow has eaten it
+up." The laziest man said, "Then give me your sow." "What, a sow for
+your chicken, nonsense; go away, my man." "Then if you don't do that
+I'll have you before the justice." "Ah, well, take the sow and my
+curses with it," said the landlord.
+
+And the man took the sow and followed it along the road till he came
+to another inn, and said to the landlady, "Have you room for me and my
+sow?" "I have not," said the landlady, "but I can put your sow up." So
+the sow was put in the stable, and the man went off to lie in the barn
+for the night. Now the sow went roaming about the stable, and coming
+too near the hoofs of the mare, was hit in the forehead and killed by
+the mare's hoofs. So when the man came in the morning and asked for
+his sow the landlady said, "I'm very sorry, sir, but an accident has
+occurred; my mare has hit your sow in the skull and she is dead."
+"What, the mare?" "No, your sow." "Then give me the mare." "What, my
+mare for your sow, nonsense." "Well, if you don't I'll take you before
+the justice; you'll see if it's nonsense." So after some time the
+landlady agreed to give the man her mare in exchange for the dead sow.
+
+Then the man followed on in the steps of the mare till he came to
+another inn, and asked the landlord if he could put him up for the
+night, him and his mare. The landlord said, "All our beds are full,
+but you can put the mare up in the stable if you will." "Very well,"
+said the man, and tied the halter of the mare into the ring of the
+stable. Next morning early the landlord's daughter said to her father,
+"That poor mare has had nothing to drink; I'll go and lead it to the
+river." "That is none of your business," said the landlord; "let the
+man do it himself." "Ah, but the poor thing has had nothing to drink.
+I'll bring it back soon." So the girl took the mare to the river brink
+and let it drink the water; but, by chance, the mare slipped into the
+stream, which was so strong that it carried the mare away. And the
+young girl ran back to her mother and said, "Oh mother, the mare fell
+into the stream and it was carried quite away. What shall we do? What
+shall we do?"
+
+When the man came round that morning he said, "Please give me my
+mare." "I'm very sorry indeed, sir, but my daughter--that one
+there--wanted to give the poor thing a drink and took it down to the
+river and it fell in and was carried away by the stream; I'm very
+sorry indeed." "Your sorrow won't pay my loss," said the man; "the
+least you can do is to give me your daughter." "What, my daughter to
+you because of the mare!" "Well, if you don't I will take you before
+the justice." Now the landlord didn't like going before the justice.
+
+So after much haggling he agreed to let his daughter go with the man.
+And they went along, and they went along, and they went along, till at
+last they came to another inn which was kept by the girl's aunt,
+though the man didn't know it. So he went in and said, "Can you give
+me beds for me and my girl here?" So the landlady looked at the girl
+who said nothing, and said, "Well, I haven't got a bed for you but I
+have got a bed for her; but perhaps she'll run away." "Oh, I will
+manage that," said the man. And he went and got a sack and put the
+girl in it and tied her up; and then he went off. As soon as he was
+gone the girl's aunt opened the bag and said, "What has happened, my
+dear?" And she told the whole story. So the aunt took a big dog and
+put it in the sack; and when the man came the next morning he said,
+"Where's my girl?" "There she is, so far as I know." So he took the
+sack and put it on his shoulder and went on his way for a time. Then
+as the sun grew high he sat down under the shade of a tree and thought
+he would speak to the girl. And when he opened the sack the big dog
+flew out at him, and he fell back, and that's the last I heard of
+him.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Seven-Headed Dragon]
+
+THE KING OF THE FISHES
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a fisherman who was very poor and felt
+poorer still because he had no children. Now one day as he was fishing
+he caught in his net the finest fish he had ever seen, the scales all
+gold and eyes as bright as diamonds; and just as he was going to take
+it out of the net what do you think happened? The fish opened his jaws
+and said, "I am the King of the Fishes, and if you throw me back into
+the water you will never want a catch." The fisherman was so surprised
+that he let the fish slip into the water, and he flapped his big tail
+and dived under the waves. When he got home he told his wife all
+about it, and she said, "Oh, what a pity, I have had such a longing to
+eat such a fish."
+
+Well, next day the fisherman went again a-fishing and, sure enough, he
+caught the same fish again, and it said, "I am the King of the Fishes,
+if you let me go you shall always have your nets full." So the
+fisherman let him go again; and when he went back to his home he told
+his wife that he had done so. She began to cry and wail and said, "I
+told you I wanted such a fish, and yet you let him go; I am sure you
+do not love me." The fisherman felt quite ashamed of himself and
+promised that if he caught the King of the Fishes again he would bring
+him home to his wife for her to cook. So next day the fisherman went
+to the same place and caught the same fish the third time. But when
+the fish begged the fisherman to let him go he told the King of the
+Fishes what his wife had said and what he had promised her. "Well,"
+said the King of the Fishes, "if you must kill me you must, but as you
+let me go twice I will do this for you. When the wife cuts me up throw
+some of my bones under the mare, and some of my bones under the bitch,
+and the rest of my bones bury beneath the rose-tree in the garden and
+then you will see what you will see."
+
+So the fisherman took the King of the Fishes home to his wife, to whom
+he told what the fish had said; and when she cut up the fish for
+cooking they threw some of the bones under the mare, and some under
+the bitch, and the rest they buried under the rose-tree in the garden.
+
+Now after a time the fisherman's wife gave him two fine twin boys,
+whom they named George and Albert, each with a star on his forehead
+just under his hair, and at the same time the mare brought into the
+world two fine colts, and the bitch two puppies. And under the
+rose-tree grew up two rose bushes, each of which bore every year only
+one rose, but what a rose that was! It lasted through the summer and
+it lasted through the winter and, most curious of all, when George
+fell ill one of the roses began to wilt, and if Albert had an illness
+the same thing happened with the other rose.
+
+Now when George and Albert grew up they heard that a Seven-Headed
+Dragon was ravaging the neighbouring kingdom, and that the king had
+promised his daughter's hand to anyone that would free the land from
+this scourge. They both wanted to go and fight the dragon, but at last
+the twins agreed that George go and Albert stop at home and look after
+their father and mother, who had now grown old. So George took his
+horse and his dog and rode off where the dragon had last been seen.
+And when he came to Middlegard, the capital of the kingdom, he rode
+with his horse and his dog to the chief inn of the town and asked the
+landlady why everything looked so gloomy and why the houses were
+draped in black. "Have you not heard, sir," asked the landlady, "that
+the Dragon with the Seven Heads has been eating up a pure maiden
+every month? And now he demands that the princess herself shall be
+delivered up to him this day. That is why the town is draped in black
+and we are all so gloomy." Thereupon George took his horse and his dog
+and rode out to where the princess was exposed to the coming of the
+Dragon with Seven Heads. And when the princess saw George with his
+horse and his sword and his dog she asked him, "Why come you here,
+sir? Soon the Dragon with Seven Heads, whom none can withstand, will
+be here to claim me. Flee before it is too late." But George said,
+"Princess, a man can die once, and I will willingly try to save you
+from the dragon." Now as they were talking a horrible roar rent the
+air and the Dragon with the Seven Heads came towards the princess. But
+when it saw George it called out, "Can'st fight?" and George said, "If
+I can't I can learn." "I'll learn thee," said the dragon. And
+thereupon began a mighty combat between George and the dragon; and
+whenever the dragon came near to George his dog would spring at one of
+his paws, and when one of the heads reared back to deal with it
+George's horse would spring to that side, and George's sword would
+sweep that head away. And so at last all the seven heads of the dragon
+were shorn off by George's sword, and the princess was saved. And
+George opened the mouths of seven of the dragon's heads and cut out
+the tongues, and the princess gave him her handkerchief, and he wrapt
+all the seven tongues in it and put them away next his heart. But
+George was so tired out by the fight that he laid down to sleep with
+his head in the princess's lap, and she parted his hair with her hands
+and saw the star on his brow.
+
+Meanwhile the king's marshal, who was to have married the princess if
+he would slay the dragon, had been watching the fight from afar off;
+and when he saw that the dragon had been slain and that George was
+lying asleep after the fight, he crept up behind the princess and,
+drawing his dagger, said, "Put his head on the ground or else I will
+slay thee." And when she had done that he bade her rise and come with
+him after he had collected the seven heads of the dragon and strung
+them on the leash of his whip. The princess would have wakened George
+but the marshal threatened to kill her if she did. "If I cannot wed
+thee he shall not." And then he made her swear that she would say that
+the marshal had slain the Dragon with the Seven Heads. And when the
+princess and the marshal came near the city the king and his courtiers
+and all his people came out to meet them with great rejoicing, and the
+king said to his daughter, "Who saved thee?" and she said, "this man."
+"Then he shall marry thee," said the king. "No, no, father," said the
+princess, "I am not old enough to marry yet; give me, at any rate, a
+year and a day before the wedding takes place," for she hoped that
+George would come and save her from the wicked marshal. The king
+himself, who loved his daughter greatly, gave way at last and promised
+that she should not be married for a year and a day.
+
+When George awoke and saw the dead body and found the princess there
+no longer he did not know what to make of it but thought that she did
+not wish to marry a fisherman's son. So he mounted his horse, and with
+his faithful hound went on seeking further adventures through the
+world, and did not come that way again till a year had passed, when he
+rode into Middlegard again and alighted at the same inn where he had
+stopped before. "How now, hostess," he cried, "last time I was here
+the city was all in mourning but now everything is agog with glee;
+trumpets are blaring, lads and lasses are dancing round the trees, and
+every house has flags and banners flowing from its windows. What is
+happening?" "Know you not, sir," said the hostess, "that our princess
+marries to-morrow?" "Why, last time," he said, "she was going to be
+devoured by the Dragon with Seven Heads." "Nay, but he was slain by
+the king's marshal who weds the princess to-morrow as a reward for his
+bravery, and every one that wishes may join the wedding feast to-night
+in the king's castle."
+
+[Illustration: _The Marshal tells how he killed the Dragon_]
+
+That night George went up to the king's castle and took his place at
+the table not far off from where sat the king with the princess on
+one side of him and the marshal on the other; and after the banquet
+the king called upon the marshal once more to tell how he had slain
+the Dragon with the Seven Heads. And the marshal told a long tale of
+how he had cut off the seven heads of the dragon, and at the finish he
+ordered his squire to bring in a platter on which were the seven
+heads. Then up rose George and spoke to the king and said, "And pray,
+my lord, how does it happen that the dragon's heads had no tongues?"
+And the king said, "That I know not; let us look and see." And the
+jaws of the dragon's heads were opened, and behold there were no
+tongues in them. Then the king asked the marshal, "Know you aught of
+this?" And the marshal had nothing to say. And the princess looked up
+and saw her champion again. Then George took out from his doublet the
+seven tongues of the dragon, and it was found that they fitted. "What
+is the meaning of this, sir," said the king. Then George told the
+story of how he had slain the dragon and fallen asleep in the
+princess's lap and had awoke and found her gone. And the princess,
+when asked by her father, could not but tell of the treachery of the
+marshal. "Away with him," cried out the king, "let his head be taken
+off and his tongue be taken out, and let his place be taken by this
+young stranger."
+
+So George and the princess were married and lived happily, till one
+night, looking out of the window of the castle where they lived,
+George saw in the distance another castle with windows all lit up and
+shining like fire. And he asked the princess, his wife, what that
+castle might be. "Go not near that, George," said the princess, "for I
+have always heard that none who enters that castle ever comes out
+again." The next morning George went with horse and hound to seek the
+castle; and when he got near it he found at the gate an old dame with
+but one eye; and he asked her to open the gate, and she said she would
+but that it was a custom of the castle that who ever entered had to
+drink a glass of wine before doing so; and she offered him a goblet
+full of wine; but when he had drunk it he and his horse and his dog
+were all turned into stone.
+
+Just at the very moment when George was turned to stone Albert, who
+had heard nothing of him, saw George's rose in the garden close up and
+turn the colour of marble; then he knew that something had happened to
+his brother, and he had out his horse and his dog and rode off to find
+out what had been George's fate. And he rode, and he rode, till he
+came to Middlegard, and as soon as he reached the gate the guard of
+the gate said, "Your highness, the princess has been in great anxiety
+about you; she will be so happy to know that you have returned safe."
+Albert said nothing, but followed the guard until he came to the
+princess's chamber, and she ran to him and embraced him and cried
+out, "Oh, George, I am so delighted that you have come back safe."
+"Why should I not," said Albert. "Because I feared that you had gone
+to that castle with flaming windows, from which nobody ever returns
+alive," said the princess.
+
+Then Albert guessed what had happened to George, and he soon made an
+excuse and went off again to seek the castle which the princess had
+pointed out from the window. When Albert got there he found the same
+old dame sitting by the gate, and asked if he might go in and see the
+castle. She said again that none might enter the castle unless they
+had taken a glass of wine and brought out the goblet of wine once
+more. Albert was about to drink it up when his faithful dog jumped up
+and spilt the wine, which he began to lap up, and as soon as he had
+drunk a little of it his body turned to marble, just by the side of
+another stone which looked exactly the same. Then Albert guessed what
+had happened, and descending from his horse he took out his sword and
+threatened the old witch that he would kill her unless she restored
+his brother to his proper shape. In fear and trembling the old dame
+muttered something over the four stones in front of the castle, and
+George and his horse and his hound and Albert's dog became alive again
+as they were before. Then George and Albert rode back to the princess
+who, when she saw them both so much alike, could not tell which was
+which; then she remembered and went up to Albert and parted his hair
+on his forehead and saw there the star, and said, "This is my George";
+but then George parted his own hair, and she saw the same star there.
+At last Albert told her all that had happened, and she knew her own
+husband again. And soon after the king died, and George ruled in his
+place, and Albert married one of the neighbouring princesses.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Scissors]
+
+SCISSORS
+
+
+Once upon a time, though it was not in my time nor in your time nor in
+anybody else's time, there lived a cobbler named Tom and his wife
+named Joan. And they lived fairly happily together, except that
+whatever Tom did Joan did the opposite, and whatever Joan thought Tom
+thought quite contrary-wise. When Tom wanted beef for dinner Joan
+liked pork, and if Joan wanted to have chicken Tom would like to have
+duck. And so it went on all the time.
+
+Now it happened that one day Joan was cleaning up the kitchen and,
+turning suddenly, she knocked two or three pots and pans together and
+broke them all. So Tom, who was working in the front room, came and
+asked Joan, "What's all this? What have you been doing?" Now Joan had
+got the pair of scissors in her hand, and sooner than tell him what
+had really happened she said, "I cut these pots and pans into pieces
+with my scissors."
+
+"What," said Tom, "cut pottery with your scissors, you nonsensical
+woman; you can't do it!"
+
+"I tell you I did with my scissors!"
+
+"You couldn't."
+
+"I did."
+
+"You couldn't."
+
+"I did."
+
+"Couldn't."
+
+"Did."
+
+"Couldn't."
+
+"Did."
+
+"Couldn't."
+
+"Did."
+
+At last Tom got so angry that he seized Joan by the shoulders and
+shoved her out of the house and said, "If you don't tell me how you
+broke those pots and pans I'll throw you into the river." But Joan
+kept on saying, "It was with the scissors"; and Tom got so enraged
+that at last he took her to the bank of the river and said, "Now for
+the last time, will you tell me the truth; how did you break those
+pots and pans?"
+
+"With the scissors."
+
+And with that he threw her into the river, and she sank once, and she
+sank twice, and just before she was about to sink for the third time
+she put her hand up into the air, out of the water, and made a motion
+with her first and middle finger as if she were moving the scissors.
+So Tom saw it was no use to try to persuade her to do anything but
+what she wanted. So he rushed up the stream and met a neighbour who
+said, "Tom, Tom, what are you running for?"
+
+"Oh, I want to find Joan; she fell into the river just in front of our
+house, and I am afraid she is going to be drowned."
+
+"But," said the neighbour, "you're running up stream."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "Joan always went contrary-wise whatever happened."
+And so he never found her in time to save her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
+
+
+There was once a merchant that had three daughters, and he loved them
+better than himself. Now it happened that he had to go a long journey
+to buy some goods, and when he was just starting he said to them,
+"What shall I bring you back, my dears?" And the eldest daughter asked
+to have a necklace; and the second daughter wished to have a gold
+chain; but the youngest daughter said, "Bring back yourself, Papa, and
+that is what I want the most." "Nonsense, child," said her father,
+"you must say something that I may remember to bring back for you."
+"So," she said, "then bring me back a rose, father."
+
+Well, the merchant went on his journey and did his business and bought
+a pearl necklace for his eldest daughter, and a gold chain for his
+second daughter; but he knew it was no use getting a rose for the
+youngest while he was so far away because it would fade before he got
+home. So he made up his mind he would get a rose for her the day he
+got near his house.
+
+When all his merchanting was done he rode off home and forgot all
+about the rose till he was near his house; then he suddenly remembered
+what he had promised his youngest daughter, and looked about to see if
+he could find a rose. Near where he had stopped he saw a great garden,
+and getting off his horse he wandered about in it till he found a
+lovely rose-bush; and he plucked the most beautiful rose he could see
+on it. At that moment he heard a crash like thunder, and looking
+around he saw a huge monster--two tusks in his mouth and fiery eyes
+surrounded by bristles, and horns coming out of its head and spreading
+over its back.
+
+"Mortal," said the Beast, "who told thee thou mightest pluck my
+roses?"
+
+"Please, sir," said the merchant in fear and terror for his life, "I
+promised my daughter to bring her home a rose and forgot about it till
+the last moment, and then I saw your beautiful garden and thought you
+would not miss a single rose, or else I would have asked your
+permission."
+
+"Thieving is thieving," said the Beast, "whether it be a rose or a
+diamond; thy life is forfeit."
+
+The merchant fell on his knees and begged for his life for the sake of
+his three daughters who had none but him to support them.
+
+"Well, mortal, well," said the Beast, "I grant thy life on one
+condition: Seven days from now thou must bring this youngest daughter
+of thine, for whose sake thou hast broken into my garden, and leave
+her here in thy stead. Otherwise swear that thou wilt return and
+place thyself at my disposal."
+
+So the merchant swore, and taking his rose mounted his horse and rode
+home.
+
+As soon as he got into his house his daughters came rushing round him,
+clapping their hands and showing their joy in every way, and soon he
+gave the necklace to his eldest daughter, the chain to his second
+daughter, and then he gave the rose to his youngest, and as he gave it
+he sighed. "Oh, thank you, Father," they all cried. But the youngest
+said, "Why did you sigh so deeply when you gave me my rose?"
+
+"Later on I will tell you," said the merchant.
+
+So for several days they lived happily together, though the merchant
+wandered about gloomy and sad, and nothing his daughters could do
+would cheer him up till at last he took his youngest daughter aside
+and said to her, "Bella, do you love your father?"
+
+"Of course I do, Father, of course I do."
+
+"Well, now you have a chance of showing it"; and then he told her of
+all that had occurred with the Beast when he got the rose for her.
+Bella was very sad, as you can well think, and then she said, "Oh,
+Father, it was all on account of me that you fell into the power of
+this Beast; so I will go with you to him; perhaps he will do me no
+harm; but even if he does better harm to me than evil to my dear
+father."
+
+So next day the merchant took Bella behind him on his horse, as was
+the custom in those days, and rode off to the dwelling of the Beast.
+And when he got there and they alighted from his horse the doors of
+the house opened, and what do you think they saw there! Nothing. So
+they went up the steps and went through the hall, and went into the
+dining-room and there they saw a table spread with all manner of
+beautiful glasses and plates and dishes and napery, with plenty to eat
+upon it. So they waited and they waited, thinking that the owner of
+the house would appear, till at last the merchant said, "Let's sit
+down and see what will happen then." And when they sat down invisible
+hands passed them things to eat and to drink, and they ate and drank
+to their heart's content. And when they arose from the table it arose
+too and disappeared through the door as if it were being carried by
+invisible servants.
+
+Suddenly there appeared before them the Beast who said to the
+merchant, "Is this thy youngest daughter?" And when he had said that
+it was, he said, "Is she willing to stop here with me?" And then he
+looked at Bella who said, in a trembling voice, "Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, no harm shall befall thee." With that he led the merchant down
+to his horse and told him he might come that day week to visit his
+daughter. Then the Beast returned to Bella and said to her, "This
+house with all that therein is thine; if thou desirest aught clap
+thine hands and say the word and it shall be brought unto thee." And
+with that he made a sort of bow and went away.
+
+So Bella lived on in the home with the Beast and was waited on by
+invisible servants and had whatever she liked to eat and to drink; but
+she soon got tired of the solitude and, next day, when the Beast came
+to her, though he looked so terrible, she had been so well treated
+that she had lost a great deal of her terror of him. So they spoke
+together about the garden and about the house and about her father's
+business and about all manner of things, so that Bella lost altogether
+her fear of the Beast. Shortly afterwards her father came to see her
+and found her quite happy, and he felt much less dread of her fate at
+the hands of the Beast. So it went on for many days, Bella seeing and
+talking to the Beast every day, till she got quite to like him, until
+one day the Beast did not come at his usual time, just after the
+midday meal, and Bella quite missed him. So she wandered about the
+garden trying to find him, calling out his name, but received no
+reply. At last she came to the rose-bush from which her father had
+plucked the rose, and there, under it, what do you think she saw!
+There was the Beast lying huddled up without any life or motion. Then
+Bella was sorry indeed and remembered all the kindness that the Beast
+had shown her; and she threw herself down by it and said, "Oh,
+Beast, Beast, why did you die? I was getting to love you so much."
+
+[Illustration: _Beauty and the Beast_]
+
+No sooner had she said this than the hide of the Beast split in two
+and out came the most handsome young prince who told her that he had
+been enchanted by a magician and that he could not recover his natural
+form unless a maiden should, of her own accord, declare that she loved
+him.
+
+Thereupon the prince sent for the merchant and his daughters, and he
+was married to Bella, and they all lived happy together ever
+afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Reynard]
+
+REYNARD AND BRUIN
+
+
+You must know that once upon a time Reynard the Fox and Bruin the Bear
+went into partnership and kept house together. Would you like to know
+the reason? Well, Reynard knew that Bruin had a beehive full of
+honeycomb, and that was what he wanted; but Bruin kept so close a
+guard upon his honey that Master Reynard didn't know how to get away
+from him and get hold of the honey. So one day he said to Bruin,
+"Pardner, I have to go and be gossip--that means god-father, you
+know--to one of my old friends." "Why, certainly," said Bruin. So off
+Reynard goes into the woods, and after a time he crept back and
+uncovered the beehive and had such a feast of honey. Then he went back
+to Bruin, who asked him what name had been given to the child. Reynard
+had forgotten all about the christening and could only say,
+"Just-begun." "What a funny name," said Master Bruin.
+
+A little while after Reynard thought he would like another feast of
+honey. So he told Bruin that he had to go to another christening; and
+off he went. And when he came back and Bruin asked him what was the
+name given to the child Reynard said, "Half-eaten." The third time the
+same thing occurred, and this time the name given by Reynard to the
+child that didn't exist was "All-gone,"--you can guess why.
+
+A short time afterwards Master Bruin thought he would like to eat up
+some of his honey and asked Reynard to come and join him in the feast.
+When they got to the beehive Bruin was so surprised to find that there
+was no honey left; and he turned round to Reynard and said,
+"Just-begun, Half-eaten, All-gone--so that is what you meant; you have
+eaten my honey." "Why no," said Reynard, "how could that be? I have
+never stirred from your side except when I went a-gossiping, and then
+I was far away from here. You must have eaten the honey yourself,
+perhaps when you were asleep; at any rate we can easily tell; let us
+lie down here in the sunshine, and if either of us has eaten the
+honey, the sun will soon sweat it out of us." No sooner said than
+done, and the two lay side by side in the sunshine. Soon Master Bruin
+commenced to doze, and Mr. Reynard took some honey from the hive and
+smeared it round Bruin's snout; then he woke him up and said, "See,
+the honey is oozing out of your snout; you must have eaten it when you
+were asleep."
+
+Some time after this Reynard saw a man driving a cart full of fish,
+which made his mouth water. So he ran and he ran and he ran till he
+got far away in front of the cart and lay down in the road as still as
+if he were dead. When the man came up to him and saw him lying there
+dead, as he thought, he said to himself, "Why, that will make a
+beautiful red fox scarf and muff for my wife Ann." And he got down and
+seized hold of Reynard and threw him into the cart all along with the
+fish, and then he went driving on as before. Reynard began to throw
+the fish out till there were none left, and then he jumped out himself
+without the man noticing it, who drove up to his door and called out,
+"Ann, Ann, see what I have brought you." And when his wife came to the
+door she looked into the cart and said, "Why, there is nothing there."
+
+Reynard in the meantime had brought all his fish together and began
+eating some when up comes Bruin and asked for a share. "No, no," said
+Reynard, "we only share food when we have shared work. I fished for
+these, you go and fish for others."
+
+"Why, how could you fish for these? the water is all frozen over,"
+said Bruin.
+
+"I'll soon show you," said Reynard, and brought him down to the bank
+of the river, and pointed to a hole in the ice and said, "I put my
+tail in that, and the fish were so hungry I couldn't draw them up
+quick enough. Why do you not do the same?"
+
+So Bruin put his tail down and waited and waited but no fish came.
+"Have patience, man," said Reynard; "as soon as one fish comes the
+rest will follow."
+
+"Ah, I feel a bite," said Bruin, as the water commenced to freeze
+round his tail and caught it in the ice.
+
+[Illustration: Bruin Gets a Beating]
+
+"Better wait till two or three have been caught and then you can catch
+three at a time. I'll go back and finish my lunch."
+
+And with that Master Reynard trotted up to the man's wife and said to
+her, "Ma'am, there's a big black bear caught by the tail in the ice;
+you can do what you like with him." So the woman called her husband
+and they took big sticks and went down to the river and commenced
+whacking Bruin who, by this time, was fast in the ice. He pulled and
+he pulled and he pulled, till at last he got away leaving three
+quarters of his tail in the ice, and that is why bears have such short
+tails up to the present day.
+
+Meanwhile Master Reynard was having a great time in the man's house,
+golloping everything he could find till the man and his wife came back
+and found him with his nose in the cream jug. As soon as he heard them
+come in he tried to get away, but not before the man had seized hold
+of the cream jug and thrown it at him, just catching him on the tail,
+and that is the reason why the tips of foxes' tails are cream white to
+this very day.
+
+[Illustration: Bruin Carries Reynard]
+
+Well, Reynard crept home and found Bruin in such a state, who
+commenced to grumble and complain that it was all Reynard's fault that
+he had lost his tail. So Reynard pointed to his own tail and said,
+"Why, that's nothing; see my tail; they hit me so hard upon the head
+my brains fell out upon my tail. Oh, how bad I feel; won't you carry
+me to my little bed." So Bruin, who was a good-hearted soul, took him
+upon his back and rolled with him towards the house. And as he went on
+Reynard kept saying, "The sick carries the sound, the sick carries the
+sound."
+
+"What's that you are saying?" asked Bruin.
+
+"Oh, I have no brains left, I do not know what I am saying," said
+Reynard but kept on singing, "The sick carries the sound, ha, ha, the
+sick carries the sound."
+
+Then Bruin knew that he had been done and threw Reynard down upon the
+ground, and would have eaten him up but that the fox slunk away and
+rushed into a briar bush. Bruin followed him closely into the briar
+bush and caught Reynard's hind leg in his mouth. Then Reynard called
+out, "That's right, you fool, bite the briar root, bite the briar
+root."
+
+Bruin thinking that he was biting the briar root, let go Reynard's
+foot and snapped at the nearest briar root. "That's right, now you've
+got me,
+
+ don't hurt me too much,"
+
+called out Reynard, and slunk away.
+
+ "Don't hurt me too much,
+ don't hurt me too much."
+
+When Bruin heard Reynard's voice dying away in the distance he knew
+that he had been done again, and that was the end of their
+partnership.
+
+Some time after this a man was plowing in the field with his two oxen,
+who were very lazy that day. So the man called out at them, "Get a
+move on or I'll give you to the Bear"; and when they didn't quicken
+their pace he tried to frighten them by calling out, "Bear, Bear, come
+and take these lazy oxen." Sure enough, Bruin heard him and came out
+of the woods and said, "Here I am, give me the oxen, or else it'll be
+worse for you." The man was in despair but said, "Yes, yes, of course
+they are yours, but please let me finish my morning's plowing so I may
+finish this acre." Bruin could not say "No" to that, and sat down
+licking his chops and waiting for the oxen. The man went on plowing,
+thinking what he should do, when just at the corner of the field
+Reynard came up to him and said, "If you will give me two geese, I'll
+help you out of this fix and deliver the Bear into your hands." The
+man agreed and he told him what to do and went away into the woods.
+Soon after, the Bear and the man heard a noise like "Bow-wow,
+Bow-wow"; and the Bear came to the man and said, "What's that?" "Oh,
+that must be the lord's hounds out hunting for bears." "Hide me, hide
+me," said Bruin, "and I will let you off the oxen." Then Reynard
+called out from the wood, "What's that black thing you've got there?"
+And the Bear said, "Say it's the stump of a tree." So when the man had
+called this out to the Fox, Reynard called out, "Put it in the cart;
+fix it with the chain; cut off the boughs, and drive your axe into the
+stump." Then the Bear said to the man, "Pretend to do what he bids
+you; heave me into the cart; bind me with the chain; pretend to cut
+off the boughs, and drive the axe into the stump." So the man lifted
+Bruin into the cart, bound him with the chain, then cut off his limbs
+and buried the axe in his head.
+
+Then Reynard came forward and asked for his reward, and the man went
+back to his house to get the pair of geese that he had promised.
+
+"Wife, wife," he called out, as he neared the house, "get me a pair of
+geese, which I have promised the Fox for ridding me of the Bear."
+
+"I can do better than that," said his wife Ann, and brought him out a
+bag with two struggling animals in it.
+
+"Give these to Master Reynard," said she; "they will be geese enough
+for him." So the man took the bag and went down to the field and gave
+the bag to Reynard; but when he opened it out sprang two hounds, and
+he had great trouble in running away from them to his den.
+
+When he got to his den the Fox asked each of his limbs, how they had
+helped him in his flight. His nose said, "I smelt the hounds"; his
+eyes said, "We looked for the shortest way"; his ears said, "We
+listened for the breathing of the hounds"; and his legs said, "We ran
+away with you." Then he asked his tail what it had done, and it said,
+"Why, I got caught in the bushes or made your leg stumble; that is all
+I could do." So, as a punishment, the Fox stuck his tail out of his
+den, and the hounds saw it and caught hold of it, and dragged the Fox
+out of his den by it and ate him all up. So that was the end of Master
+Reynard, and well he deserved it. Don't you think so?
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE DANCING WATER, THE SINGING APPLE, AND THE SPEAKING BIRD
+
+
+There was once an herb-gatherer who had three daughters who earned
+their living by spinning. One day their father died and left them all
+alone in the world. Now the king had a habit of going about the
+streets at night, and listening at the doors to hear what the people
+said of him. So one night he listened at the door of the house where
+the three sisters lived, and heard them disputing. The oldest said:
+"If I were the wife of the royal butler, I could give the whole court
+to drink out of one glass of water, and there would be some left."
+
+The second said: "If I were the wife of the keeper of the royal
+wardrobe, with one piece of cloth I could clothe all the attendants,
+and have some left."
+
+But the youngest daughter said: "Were I the king's wife, I would bear
+him two children: a son with a sun on his forehead, and a daughter
+with a moon on her brow."
+
+The king went back to his palace, and the next morning sent for the
+sisters, and said to them: "Do not be frightened, but tell me what you
+said last night." The oldest told him what she had said, and the king
+had a glass of water brought, and commanded her to prove her words.
+She took the glass, and gave all the attendants some water to drink,
+and still there was some water left.
+
+"Bravo!" cried the king, and summoned the butler. "This is your
+husband. Now it is your turn," said the king to the next sister, and
+commanded a piece of cloth to be brought, and the young girl at once
+cut out garments for all the attendants, and had some cloth left.
+
+"Bravo!" cried the king again, and gave her the keeper of the wardrobe
+for her husband. "Now it is your turn," said the king to the
+youngest.
+
+"Please your Majesty, I said that if I were the king's wife, I would
+bear him two children: a son with a sun on his forehead, and a
+daughter with a moon on her brow."
+
+"If that is true," replied the king, "you shall be my queen; if not,
+you shall die," and straightway he married her.
+
+Very soon the two older sisters began to be envious of the youngest.
+"Look," said they; "she is going to be queen, and we must be
+servants!" and they began to hate her. A few months before the queen's
+children were to be born, the king declared war, and was obliged to go
+with his army, but he left word that if the queen had two children: a
+son with a sun on his forehead, and a girl with a moon on her brow,
+the mother was to be respected as queen; if not, he was to be informed
+of it, and would tell his servants what to do. Then he departed for
+the war.
+
+When the queen's children were born, a son with a sun on his forehead
+and a daughter with a moon on her brow, as she had promised, the
+envious sisters bribed the nurse to put little dogs in the place of
+the queen's children, and sent word to the king that his wife had
+given birth to two puppies. He wrote back that she should be taken
+care of for two weeks, and then put into a tread-mill.
+
+Meanwhile the nurse took the little babies, and carried them out of
+doors, saying: "I will make the dogs eat them up," and she left them
+alone. While they were thus exposed, three fairies passed by and
+exclaimed: "Oh how beautiful these children are!" and one of the
+fairies said: "What present shall we make these children?" One
+answered: "I will give them a deer to nurse them." "And I a purse
+always full of money." "And I," said the third fairy, "will give them
+a ring which will change colour when any misfortune happens to one of
+them."
+
+The deer nursed and took care of the children until they grew up. Then
+the fairy who had given them the deer came and said: "Now that you
+have grown up, how can you stay here any longer?" "Very well," said
+the brother, "I will go to the city and hire a house." "Take care,"
+said the deer, "that you hire one opposite the royal palace." So they
+went to the city and hired a palace as directed, and furnished it as
+if they had been princes. When the aunts saw the brother and sister,
+imagine their terror! "They are alive!" they said. They could not be
+mistaken for there was the sun on the forehead of the son, and the
+moon on the girl's brow. They called the nurse and said to her:
+"Nurse, what does this mean? are our nephew and niece alive?" The
+nurse watched at the window until she saw the brother go out, and then
+she went over as if to make a visit to the new house. She entered and
+said: "What is the matter, my daughter; how do you do? Are you
+perfectly happy? You lack nothing. But do you know what is necessary
+to make you really happy? It is the Dancing Water. If your brother
+loves you, he will get it for you!" She remained a moment longer and
+then departed.
+
+[Illustration: _The Foster Mother_]
+
+When the brother returned, his sister said to him; "Ah! my brother, if
+you love me go and get me the Dancing Water." He consented, and next
+morning saddled a fine horse, and departed. On his way he met a
+hermit, who asked him, "Where are you going, cavalier?"
+
+"I am going for the Dancing Water." "You are going to your death, my
+son; but keep on until you find a hermit older than I." He continued
+his journey until he met another hermit, who asked him the same
+question, and gave him the same direction. Finally he met a third
+hermit, older than the other two, with a white beard that came down to
+his feet, who gave him the following directions: "You must climb
+yonder mountain. On top of it you will find a great plain and a house
+with a beautiful gate. Before the gate you will see four giants with
+swords in their hands. Take heed; do not make a mistake; for if you
+do, that is the end of you! When the giants have their eyes closed, do
+not enter; when they have their eyes open, enter. Then you will come
+to a door. If you find it open, do not enter; if you find it shut,
+push it open and enter. Then you will find four lions. When they have
+their eyes shut, do not enter; when their eyes are open, enter, and
+you will see the Dancing Water." The youth took leave of the hermit,
+and hastened on his way.
+
+Meanwhile the sister kept looking at the ring constantly, to see
+whether the stone in it changed colour; but as it did not, she
+remained undisturbed.
+
+A few days after leaving the hermit the youth arrived at the top of
+the mountain, and saw the palace with the four giants before it. They
+had their eyes shut, and the door was open. "No," said the youth,
+"that won't do." And so he remained on the lookout a while. When the
+giants opened their eyes, and the door closed, he entered, waited
+until the lions opened their eyes, and passed in. There he found the
+Dancing Water, and filled his bottles with it, and escaped when the
+lions again opened their eyes.
+
+The aunts, meanwhile, were delighted because their nephew did not
+return; but in a few days he appeared and embraced his sister. Then
+they had two golden basins made, and put into them the Dancing Water,
+which leaped from one basin to the other. When the aunts saw it they
+exclaimed: "Ah! how did he manage to get that water?" and called the
+nurse, who again waited until the sister was alone, and then visited
+her. "You see," said she, "how beautiful the Dancing Water is! But do
+you know what you want now? The Singing Apple." Then she departed.
+When the brother who had brought the Dancing Water returned, his
+sister said to him: "If you love me you must get for me the Singing
+Apple." "Yes, my sister, I will go and get it."
+
+Next morning he mounted his horse, and set out. After a time he met
+the first hermit, who sent him to an older one. He asked the youth
+where he was going, and said: "It is a difficult task to get the
+Singing Apple, but hear what you must do: Climb the mountain; beware
+of the giants, the door, and the lions; then you will find a little
+door and a pair of shears in it. If the shears are open, enter; if
+closed, do not risk it." The youth continued his way, found the
+palace, entered, and found everything favourable. When he saw the
+shears open, he went in a room and saw a wonderful tree, on top of
+which was an apple. He climbed up and tried to pick the apple, but the
+top of the tree swayed now this way, now that. He waited until it was
+still a moment, seized the branch, and picked the apple. He succeeded
+in getting safely out of the palace, mounted his horse, and rode home,
+and all the time he was carrying the apple it kept on singing.
+
+The aunts were again delighted because their nephew was so long
+absent; but when they saw him return, they felt as though the house
+had fallen on them. Again they summoned the nurse, and again she
+visited the young girl, and said: "See how beautiful they are, the
+Dancing Water and the Singing Apple! But should you see the Speaking
+Bird, there would be nothing left for you to see." "Very well," said
+the young girl; "we will see whether my brother will get it for me."
+
+When her brother came she asked him for the Speaking Bird, and he
+promised to get it for her. He met, as usual on his journey, the first
+hermit, who sent him to the second, who sent him on to a third one,
+who said to him: "Climb the mountain and enter the palace. You will
+find many statues. Then you will come to a garden, in the midst of
+which is a fountain, and on the basin is the Speaking Bird. If it
+should say anything to you, do not answer. Pick a feather from the
+bird's wing, dip it into a jar you will find there, and anoint all the
+statues. Keep your eyes open, and all will go well."
+
+The youth already knew well the way, and soon was in the palace. He
+found the garden and the bird, which, as soon as it saw him,
+exclaimed: "What is the matter, noble sir; have you come for me? You
+have missed it. Your aunts have sent you to your death, and you must
+remain here. Your mother has been sent to the tread-mill." "My mother
+in the tread-mill?" cried the youth, and scarcely were the words out
+of his mouth when he became a statue like all the others.
+
+Now when her brother did not come back the third time the sister
+looked at her ring, and it had become black, and she knew that
+something had befallen him. Poor child! not having anything else to
+do, she dressed herself like a page and set out.
+
+Like her brother, she met the three hermits, and received their
+instructions. The third concluded thus: "Beware, for if you answer
+when the bird speaks you will lose your life, but if you speak not, it
+will come to you; take one of its feathers and dip it in the jar you
+will see there and anoint your brother's nostril with it." She
+continued her way, followed exactly the hermit's directions, and
+reached the garden in safety. When the bird saw her it exclaimed: "Ah!
+you here, too? Now you will meet the same fate as your brother. Do you
+see him lying there? Your father is at the war. Your mother is in the
+tread-mill. Your aunts are rejoicing."
+
+But the sister made no reply, but let the bird sing on. When it had
+nothing more to say it flew down, and the young girl caught it, pulled
+a feather from its wing, dipped it into the jar, and anointed her
+brother's nostrils, and he at once came to life again. Then she did
+the same with all the other statues, with the lions and the giants,
+until all became alive again. Then she departed with her brother, and
+all the noblemen, princes, barons, and kings' sons rejoiced greatly.
+Now when they had all come to life again the palace disappeared, and
+the hermits disappeared, for they were the three fairies.
+
+The day after the brother and sister reached the city where they
+lived, they summoned a goldsmith, and had him make a gold chain, and
+fasten the bird with it. The next time the aunts looked out they saw
+in the window of the palace opposite the Dancing Water, the Singing
+Apple, and the Speaking Bird. "Well," said they, "the real trouble is
+coming now!"
+
+The bird directed the brother and sister to procure a carriage finer
+than the king's, with twenty-four attendants, and to have the service
+of their palace, cooks, and servants, more numerous and better than
+the king's. All of which the brother and sister did at once. And when
+the aunts saw these things they were ready to die of rage.
+
+At last the king returned from the war, and his subjects told him all
+the news of the kingdom, and the thing they talked about the least was
+his wife and children. One day the king looked out of the window and
+saw the palace opposite furnished in a magnificent manner. "Who lives
+there?" he asked, but no one could answer him. He looked again and saw
+the brother and sister, the former with the sun on his forehead, and
+the latter with the moon on her brow. "Gracious! if I did not know
+that my wife had given birth to puppies, I should say that those were
+my children," exclaimed the king. Another day he stood by the window
+and enjoyed the Dancing Water and the Singing Apple, but the bird was
+silent.
+
+After the king had heard all the music, the bird said: "What does
+your Majesty think of it?" The king was astonished at hearing the
+Speaking Bird, and answered: "What should I think? It is marvellous."
+
+"There is something more marvellous," said the bird; "just wait."
+
+Then the bird told his mistress to call her brother, and said: "There
+is the king; let us invite him to dinner on Sunday. Shall we not?"
+
+"Yes, yes," they said. So the king was invited and accepted, and on
+Sunday the bird had a grand dinner prepared and the king came. When he
+saw the young people near, he clapped his hands and said: "They must
+be my children."
+
+He went over the palace and was astonished at its richness. Then they
+went to dinner, and while they were eating the king said: "Bird, every
+one is talking; you alone are silent."
+
+"Ah! your Majesty, I am ill; but next Sunday I shall be well and able
+to talk, and will come and dine at your palace with this lady and this
+gentleman."
+
+The next Sunday the bird directed his mistress and her brother to put
+on their finest clothes; so they dressed in royal style and took the
+bird with them. The king showed them through his palace and treated
+them with the greatest ceremony; the aunts were nearly dead with fear.
+When they had seated themselves at the table, the king said: "Come,
+bird, you promised me you would speak; have you nothing to say?" Then
+the bird began and related all that had happened from the time the
+king had listened at the door until his poor wife had been sent to the
+tread-mill; then the bird added: "These are your children, and your
+wife was sent to the tread-mill, and is dying."
+
+[Illustration: The King Begs Pardon]
+
+When the king heard all this, he hastened to embrace his children, and
+then went to find his poor wife, who was reduced to skin and bones and
+was at the point of death. He knelt before her and begged her pardon,
+and then summoned her sisters and the nurse, and when they were in his
+presence he said to the bird: "Bird, you who have told me everything,
+now pronounce their sentence." Then the bird sentenced the nurse to be
+thrown out of the window, and the sisters to be cast into a cauldron
+of boiling oil. This was at once done. The king was never tired of
+embracing his wife. Then the bird departed and the king and his wife
+and children lived together in peace.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Girl and the Frog]
+
+THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS
+
+
+There was once a man who had a son named Jack, who was very simple in
+mind and backward in his thought. So his father sent him away to
+school so that he might learn something; and after a year he came back
+from school.
+
+"Well, Jack," said his father, "what have you learnt at school?"
+
+And Jack said, "I know what dogs mean when they bark."
+
+"That's not much," said his father. "You must go to school again."
+
+So he sent him to school for another year, and when he came back he
+asked him what he had learnt.
+
+"Well, father," said the boy, "when frogs croak I know what they
+mean."
+
+"You must learn more than that," said the father, and sent him once
+more to school.
+
+And when he returned, after another year, he asked him once more what
+he had learnt.
+
+"I know all the birds say when they twitter and chirp, caw and coo,
+gobble and cluck."
+
+"Well I must say," said the father, "that does not seem much for three
+years' schooling. But let us see if you have learnt your lessons
+properly. What does that bird say just above our heads in the tree
+there?"
+
+Jack listened for some time but did not say anything.
+
+"Well, Jack, what is it?" asked his father.
+
+"I don't like to say, father."
+
+"I don't believe you know or else you would say. Whatever it is I
+shall not mind."
+
+Then the boy said, "The bird kept on saying as clear as could be, 'the
+time is not so far away when Jack's father will offer him water on
+bended knees for him to wash his hands; and his mother shall offer him
+a towel to wipe them with.'"
+
+Thereupon the father grew very angry at Jack and his love for him
+changed to hatred, and one day he spoke to a robber and promised him
+much money if he would take Jack away into the forest and kill him
+there and bring back his heart to show that he had done what he had
+promised. But instead of doing this the robber told Jack all about it
+and advised him to flee away, while the robber took back to Jack's
+father the heart of a deer saying that it was Jack's. Then Jack
+travelled on and on till one night he stopped at a castle on the way;
+and while they were all supping together in the castle hall the dogs
+in the court-yard began barking and baying. And Jack went up to the
+lord of the castle and said, "There will be an attack upon the castle
+to-night."
+
+"How do you know that?" asked the lord.
+
+"The dogs say so," said Jack.
+
+At that the lord and his men laughed, but never-the-less put an extra
+guard around the castle that night, and, sure enough, the attack was
+made, which was easily beaten off because the men were prepared. So
+the lord gave Jack a great reward for warning him, and he went on his
+way with a fellow traveller who had heard him warn the lord.
+
+Soon afterwards they arrived at another castle in which the lord's
+daughter was lying sick unto death; and a great reward had been
+offered to him that should cure her. Now Jack had been listening to
+the frogs as they were croaking in the moat which surrounded the
+castle. So Jack went to the lord of the castle and said, "I know what
+ails your daughter."
+
+"What is it," asked the lord.
+
+"She has dropped the holy wafer from her mouth and it has been
+swallowed by one of the frogs in the moat."
+
+"How do you know that?" said the lord.
+
+"I heard the frogs say so."
+
+At first the lord would not believe it; but in order to save his
+daughter's life he got Jack to point out the frog who was boasting of
+what he had swallowed, and, catching it, found what Jack had said was
+true. The frog was caught and killed, the wafer got back, and the girl
+recovered. So the lord gave Jack the reward which was promised, and he
+went on further with his companion and with another guest of the
+castle who had heard what Jack had said and done.
+
+So Jack, with his two companions, travelled on towards Rome, the city
+of cities where dwelt the Pope, in those days the head of all
+Christendom. And as they were resting by the roadside Jack said to his
+companions, "Who would have thought it? One of us is going to be the
+Pope of Rome."
+
+And his comrades asked him how he knew.
+
+And he said, "The birds above in the tree have said so."
+
+And his comrades at first laughed at him, but then remembered that
+what he had said before of the barking of dogs and of the croaking of
+frogs had turned out to be true.
+
+[Illustration: The Pope is Elected]
+
+Now when they arrived at Rome they found that the Pope had just died
+and that they were about to select his successor. And it was decided
+that all the people should pass under an arch whereon was a bell and
+two doves, and he upon whose shoulders the doves should alight, and
+for whom the bell should ring as he passed under the arch was to be
+the next Pope. And when Jack and his companions came near the arch
+they all remembered his prophecy and wondered which of the three
+should receive the signs. And his first comrade passed under the arch
+and nothing happened, and then the second and nothing happened, but
+when Jack went through the doves descended and alighted upon his
+shoulder and the bell began to toll. So Jack was made Pope of all
+Christendom, and he took the name of Pope Sylvester.
+
+After a while the new Pope went upon his travels and came to the town
+where his father dwelt. And there was a great banquet held, to which
+Jack's father and mother were invited at his request. And when they
+came he ordered his servants to give to his father the basin of water,
+and to his mother the towel, wherewith the Pope would wash his hands
+after dinner. Now this was, in those days, a great honour, and people
+wondered why Jack's father and mother should be so honoured. But after
+Jack's father had offered him the basin of water, and his mother the
+towel, Jack said to them, "Do you not know me, mother? Do you not know
+me, father?" and made himself known to them and reminded his father of
+what the bird had said. So he forgave his father and took him and his
+mother to live with him ever afterwards.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE THREE SOLDIERS
+
+
+Once upon a time three soldiers returned from the wars; one was a
+sergeant, one was a corporal, and the third was a simple private. One
+night they were caught in a forest and made a fire up to sleep by; and
+the sergeant had to do sentry-go. While he was walking up and down an
+old woman, bent double, came up to him and said:
+
+"Please, sir, may I warm myself by your fire?"
+
+"Why, certainly, mother, you are welcome to all the warmth you can
+get."
+
+So the old woman sat by the fire for a time, and when she had got
+thoroughly warmed she said to the sergeant:
+
+"Thank you, soldier; here is something for your trouble." And she
+handed him a purse, which seemed to have nothing in it.
+
+"Oh, thank you, marm," said the sergeant, "but I wouldn't deprive you
+of it, especially as there is nothing in it."
+
+"That may be so now," said the old woman, "but take it in your hand
+and turn it upside-down, and while you hold it like that gold
+pieces will come pouring out of it."
+
+[Illustration: _The Magic Purse_]
+
+He took it, and, sure enough, whenever he held it up out came the gold
+pieces. So he thanked her very much, and off she went.
+
+Next night the corporal had to play sentry, and the old woman came up
+to him and asked to sit by the side of the fire.
+
+"Certainly, marm," said he, "and welcome you are. I have known what it
+is to shiver in my bones."
+
+So the old woman sat by the fire for a time, and when she was leaving
+gave the corporal a tablecloth.
+
+Said he, "Thank you, marm, kindly, but we soldiers rarely use
+tablecloths when we are eating our vittles."
+
+"Yes, but this gives you vittles to eat," said the old woman.
+"Whenever you put this over a table or on the ground and call out 'Be
+covered!' the finest dinner you could eat at once comes upon it."
+
+"If that is so," said the corporal, "I'll take it and thank you
+kindly." And with that the old woman departed, and the corporal woke
+up his comrades and called out: "Tablecloth be covered!" And, sure
+enough, the finest dinner you could imagine appeared upon the cloth.
+
+Next night the private marched up and down doing sentry-go, when the
+old woman appeared again and asked to sit by the fire.
+
+"Surely," said the private, "you're as welcome as my own mother would
+be."
+
+And after she had sat some time by the fire she got up and said:
+
+"Thank you kindly, sir; I hope this will pay you for your trouble."
+And she gave him a whistle.
+
+"And what's this for?" said the private. "I can't play on the
+whistle."
+
+"But you can blow it," said she, "and whenever you blow it out will
+come a regiment of armed men that will do whatever you tell them."
+
+And with that the old woman departed, and they never saw her more.
+
+So the three soldiers travelled on till they came to a city where
+there was a princess, who was so proud of her card playing that she
+had agreed to marry any one who could beat her at cards. Now the
+sergeant was also very proud of his card playing, and he thought he
+would try his luck with the princess. So when he went up to the palace
+he offered to play a game with her, but she said to him:
+
+"What are your stakes? If I lose I have to marry you. But if you lose
+what do you lose?"
+
+So the sergeant said: "I'll stake my purse."
+
+"Why, what's a purse with nothing in it!" said the princess.
+
+"There may be nothing in it now," said the sergeant, "but see here,"
+and he turned the purse upside-down and put his hand under it, and it
+kept on dropping gold pieces into his hand as long as he held it
+upside-down.
+
+So the princess agreed to play for the purse. But she had arranged a
+mirror at the back of his head in which she could see all his cards.
+And so she won easily, and he had to give up the purse.
+
+But this princess was so charming that the sergeant had fallen in love
+with her, and when he went back to his comrades he asked the corporal
+to lend him his tablecloth. And he went back to the princess and said
+to her:
+
+"Will you play me for this tablecloth?"
+
+And she said: "It may be a very beautiful tablecloth but it isn't
+quite equal to me."
+
+Then he laid it on a table and said, "Cloth, cover thyself." And there
+was a most delicious dinner spread upon it.
+
+But, as the princess knew she would be able to beat him, she agreed to
+play him for the tablecloth, and, sure enough, by means of the mirror,
+she won the tablecloth from him.
+
+The same thing happened when he borrowed the whistle from the private
+and tried his luck with the princess again. But this time he watched
+what she was doing, and knew that she had cheated him though he dared
+not say so. He lost again and went back to his comrades and asked them
+to forgive him, but he could not help it as the princess had cheated
+him. So his friends forgave him, and they all went their various
+ways.
+
+Now the sergeant wandered along, and wandered along, and wandered
+along, till he came to the bank of a stream on which there grew fig
+trees, white and black. And he gathered some of these figs from the
+different trees, and sat down by the bank to eat them. And he ate a
+black fig, and then, feeling thirsty, went down to the stream to drink
+some of the water, and as he looked in he found that he had two horns
+on the side of his head just like a goat, instead of two ears. He
+didn't know what to do; but as he was still hungry he ate one of the
+white figs; and when he went to drink again he found the horns had
+disappeared. So then he knew that the black figs brought the horns and
+the white figs took them away. So he gathered some more of them and
+went back to the palace of the princess, and sent her up some of the
+black figs as a present from an admirer.
+
+And after a while there was a rumour spread around the city that the
+princess had horns in her head, and would give anything to any one who
+could remove them.
+
+So the sergeant went up to the palace and presented himself before the
+princess and said to her:
+
+"I can remove your horns, but I want my purse, and my tablecloth, and
+my whistle back."
+
+Then she ordered them to be brought and promised to give them back to
+him as soon as the horns were removed.
+
+So he gave her a white fig, and as soon as she had eaten it the horns
+disappeared; and he took up the purse, the tablecloth, and the
+whistle. Then he said to her:
+
+[Illustration: The Princess Finds Horns on her Head]
+
+"Now, will you marry me?"
+
+"No," she replied, "why should I?"
+
+"Because you didn't win these fairly."
+
+"That may be, or that may not be, but I see no reason why I should
+marry you."
+
+Thereupon he blew his whistle, and the palace was filled with a
+regiment of soldiers. And the sergeant said:
+
+"If you do not marry me these men shall seize your father and I will
+seize his throne."
+
+So the princess married him, and he sent for the corporal and the
+private and made them rich and prosperous, and they all lived fairly
+happily together.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Unicorn]
+
+A DOZEN AT A BLOW
+
+
+A little tailor was sitting cross-legged at his bench and was
+stitching away as busy as could be when a woman came up the street
+calling out: "Home-made jam, home-made jam!"
+
+So the tailor called out to her: "Come here, my good woman, and give
+me a quarter of a pound."
+
+And when she had poured it out for him he spread it on some bread and
+butter and laid it aside for his lunch. But, in the summer-time, the
+flies commenced to collect around the bread and jam.
+
+When the tailor noticed this, he raised his leather strap and brought
+it down upon the crowd of flies and killed twelve of them
+straightway. He was mighty proud of that. So he made himself a
+shoulder-sash, on which he stitched the letters: A Dozen at One Blow.
+
+When he looked down upon this he thought to himself: "A man who could
+do such things ought not to stay at home; he ought to go out to
+conquer the world."
+
+So he put into his wallet the cream cheese that he had bought that day
+and a favourite blackbird that used to hop about his shop, and went
+out to seek his fortune.
+
+He hadn't gone far when he met a giant, and went up to him and said:
+"Well, comrade, how goes it with you?"
+
+"Comrade," sneered the giant, "a pretty comrade you would make for
+me."
+
+"Look at this," said the tailor pointing to his sash.
+
+And when the giant read, "A Dozen at a Blow," he thought to himself:
+"This little fellow is no fool of a fighter if what he says is true.
+But let's test him."
+
+So the giant said to the tailor: "If what you've got there is true, we
+may well be comrades. But let's see if you can do what I can do."
+
+And he bent down in the road and took up a large stone and pressed it
+with his hand till it all crushed up and water commenced to pour out
+from it.
+
+"Can you do that?" said the giant.
+
+The tailor also bent down in the road, but took out from his wallet
+the piece of cheese and pretended to pick it up.
+
+When he took it in his hand he pressed and pressed till the cream
+poured forth from it.
+
+The giant said: "Well, you can do that fairly well. Let's see if you
+can throw."
+
+He took another stone and threw it till it went right across the river
+by which they were standing.
+
+So the little tailor took his blackbird in his hand and pretended to
+throw it, and of course when it felt itself in the air it flew away
+and disappeared.
+
+The giant said: "That wasn't a bad throw. You may as well come home
+and stop with us giants, and we'll do great things together."
+
+As they went along the giant said: "We want some twigs for our night
+fires. You may as well help me carry some home." And he pointed to a
+tree that had fallen by the wayside and said: "Help me carry that,
+will you?"
+
+So the tailor said, "Why certainly," and went to the top of the tree,
+and said: "I'll carry these branches which are the heavier; you carry
+the trunk which has no branches."
+
+And when the giant got the trunk on his shoulders the tailor seated
+himself on one of the branches and let the giant carry him along.
+
+After a time the giant got tired and said: "Ho there, wait a minute,
+I'm going to drop the tree and rest awhile."
+
+So the tailor jumped down and caught the tree around the branches
+again and said: "Well, you are easily tired."
+
+At last they got to the giant's castle and there the giant spoke to
+his brothers and told them what a brave and powerful fellow this
+little tailor was. They spoke together and determined to get rid of
+him lest he might do them some harm. But they determined to kill him
+in the night because he was so strong and might kill twelve of them at
+a blow.
+
+But the tailor saw them whispering together, and guessing that
+something was wrong went out into the yard and got a big bladder which
+he filled with blood and put it in the bed which the giants pointed
+out to him.
+
+Then he crept under it, and during the night they brought their big
+clubs and hit the bed over and over again till the blood spurted out
+onto their faces.
+
+Then they thought the tailor was dead and went back to sleep.
+
+But in the morning there was the tailor as large as life. And they
+were so surprised to see him that they asked him if he had not felt
+anything during the night.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, there seemed to be plenty of fleas in that bed,"
+said the tailor. "I do not think I would care to sleep there again."
+And with that he took his leave of the giants and went on his way.
+
+After a time he came to the King's court and fell asleep under a tree.
+And some of the courtiers passing by saw written upon his sash, "A
+Dozen at One Blow."
+
+They went and told the King who said: "Why, he's just the man for us;
+he will be able to destroy the wild boar and the unicorn that are
+ravaging our kingdom. Bring him to us."
+
+So they woke up the little tailor and brought him to the King, who
+said to him: "There is a wild boar ravaging our kingdom. You are so
+powerful that you will easily be able to capture it."
+
+"What shall I get if I do?" asked the little tailor.
+
+"Well, I have promised to give my daughter's hand and half the kingdom
+to the man who can do it, and other things."
+
+"What other things?" said the little tailor.
+
+"Oh, it will be time to learn that when you have caught the boar."
+
+Then the little tailor went out to the wood where the boar was last
+seen, and when he came near him he ran away, and ran away, and ran
+away, till at last he came to a little chapel in the wood into which
+he ran, and the boar at his heels. He climbed up to a high window and
+got outside the chapel, and then rushed around to the door and closed
+and locked it.
+
+Then he went back to the King and said to him: "I have your wild boar
+for you in the chapel in the woods. Send some of your men to kill him,
+or do what you like with him."
+
+"How did you manage to get him there?" said the King.
+
+"Oh, I caught him by the bristles and threw him in there as I thought
+you wanted to have him safe and sound. What's the next thing I must
+do?"
+
+"Well," said the King, "there's a unicorn in this country killing
+everyone that he meets. I do not want him slain; I want him caught and
+brought to me."
+
+So the little tailor said, "Give me a rope and a hatchet and I will
+see what I can do."
+
+So he went with the rope and hatchet to the wood, where the unicorn
+had been seen. And when he came towards it he dodged it, and he dodged
+it, till at last he dodged behind a big tree, till the unicorn, in
+trying to pierce, ran his horn into the tree where it stuck fast.
+
+Then the little tailor came forth and tied the rope around the
+unicorn's neck, and dug out the horn with his hatchet, and dragged the
+unicorn to the King.
+
+"What's the next thing?" said the little tailor.
+
+"Well, there is only one thing more. There are two giants who are
+destroying everybody they meet. Get rid of them, and my daughter and
+the half of my kingdom shall be yours."
+
+Then the little tailor went to seek the giants and found them sleeping
+under some trees in the woods. He filled his box with stones, climbed
+up a tree overlooking the giants, and when he had hidden himself in
+the branches he threw a stone at the chest of one of the giants who
+woke up and said to his brother giant, "What are you doing there?"
+
+And the other giant woke up and said, "I have done nothing."
+
+"Well, don't do it again," said the other giant, and laid down to
+sleep again.
+
+Then the tailor threw a stone at the other giant and hit him a whack
+on the chin. That giant rose up and said to his fellow giant, "What do
+you do that for?"
+
+"Do what?"
+
+"Hit me on the chin."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"You did."
+
+"I didn't."
+
+"You did."
+
+"Well, take that for not doing it."
+
+And with that the other giant hit him a rousing blow on the head. With
+that they commenced fighting and tore up the trees and hit one another
+till at last one of them was killed, and the other one was so badly
+injured that the tailor had no difficulty in killing him with his
+hatchet.
+
+Then he went back to the King and said: "I have got rid of your
+giants for you; send your men and bury them in the forest. They tore
+up the trees and tried to kill me with them but I was too much for
+them. Now for the Princess."
+
+Well, the King had nothing more to say, and gave him his daughter in
+marriage and half the kingdom to rule.
+
+But shortly after they were married the Princess heard the tailor
+saying in his sleep: "Fix that button better; baste that side gore;
+don't drop your stitches like that."
+
+And then she knew she had married a tailor. And she went to her father
+weeping bitterly and complained.
+
+"Well, my dear," he said, "I promised, and he certainly showed himself
+a great hero. But I will try and get rid of him for you. To-night I
+will send into your bedroom a number of soldiers that shall slay him
+even if he can kill a dozen at a blow."
+
+So that night the little tailor noticed there was something wrong and
+heard the soldiers moving about near the bedroom. So he pretended to
+fall asleep and called out in his sleep: "I have killed a dozen at a
+blow; I have slain two giants; I have caught a wild boar by his
+bristles, and captured a unicorn alive. Show me the man that I need
+fear."
+
+And when the soldiers heard that they said to the Princess that the
+job was too much for them, and went away.
+
+And the Princess thought better of it, and was proud of her little
+hero, and they lived happily ever afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Earl of Cattenborough will be Pleased to Partake of
+a Potato]
+
+THE EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a miller who had three sons, Charles, Sam,
+and John. And every night when the servant went to bed he used to call
+out:
+
+"Good-night, Missus; good-night, Master; Good-night, Charles, Sam,
+John."
+
+Now after a time the miller's wife died, and, soon after, the miller,
+leaving only the mill, the donkey, and the cat. And Charles, as the
+eldest, took the mill, and Sam took the donkey and went off with it,
+and John was left with only the cat.
+
+Now how do you think the cat used to help John to live? She used to
+take a bag with a string around the top and place it with some cheese
+in the bushes, and when a hare or a partridge would come and try to
+get the piece of cheese--snap! Miss Puss would draw the string and
+there was the hare or partridge for Master Jack to eat. One day two
+hares happened to rush into the bag at the same time. So the cat,
+after giving one to Jack, took the other and went with it to the
+King's palace. And when she came outside the palace gate she cried
+out, "Miaou."
+
+The sentry at the gate came to see what was the matter. Miss Puss gave
+him the hare with a bow and said: "Give this to the King with the
+compliments of the Earl of Cattenborough."
+
+The King liked jugged hare very much and was glad to get such a fine
+present.
+
+Shortly after this Miss Puss found a gold coin rolling in the dirt.
+And she went up to the palace and asked the sentry if he would lend
+her a corn measure.
+
+The sentry asked who wanted it. And Puss said: "My Master, the Earl of
+Cattenborough."
+
+So the sentry gave her the corn measure. And a little while afterwards
+she took it back with the gold coin, which she had found, fixed in a
+crack in the corn measure.
+
+So the King was told that the Earl of Cattenborough measured his gold
+in a corn measure. When the King heard this he told the sentry that if
+such a thing happened again he was to deliver a message asking the
+Earl to come and stop at the palace.
+
+Some time after the cat caught two partridges, and took one of them to
+the palace. And when she called out, "Miaou," and presented it to the
+sentry, in the name of the Earl of Cattenborough, the sentry told her
+that the King wished to see the Earl at his palace.
+
+So Puss went back to Jack and said to him: "The King desires to see
+the Earl of Cattenborough at his palace."
+
+"What is that to do with me?" said Jack.
+
+"Oh, you can be the Earl of Cattenborough if you like. I'll help you."
+
+"But I have no clothes, and they'll soon find out what I am when I
+talk."
+
+"As for that," said Miss Puss, "I'll get you proper clothes if you do
+what I tell you; and when you come to the palace I will see that you
+do not make any mistakes."
+
+So next day she told Jack to take off his clothes and hide them under
+a big stone and dip himself into the river. And while he was doing
+this she went up to the palace gate and said: "Miaou, miaou, miaou!"
+
+And when the sentry came to the gate she said: "My Master, the Earl of
+Cattenborough, has been robbed of all he possessed, even of his
+clothes, and he is hiding in the bramble bush by the side of the
+river. What is to be done? What is to be done?"
+
+The sentry went and told the King. And the King gave orders that a
+suitable suit of clothes, worthy of an Earl, should be sent to Master
+Jack, who soon put them on and went to the King's palace accompanied
+by Puss. When they got there they were introduced into the chamber of
+the King, who thanked Jack for his kind presents.
+
+Miss Puss stood forward and said: "My Master, the Earl of
+Cattenborough, desires to state to your Majesty that there is no need
+of any thanks for such trifles."
+
+The King thought it was very grand of Jack not to speak directly to
+him, and summoned his lord chamberlain, and from that time onward only
+spoke through him. Thus, when they sat down to dinner with the Queen
+and the Princess, the King would say to his chamberlain, "Will the
+Earl of Cattenborough take a potato?"
+
+Whereupon Miss Puss would bow and say: "The Earl of Cattenborough
+thanks his Majesty and would be glad to partake of a potato."
+
+The King was so much struck by Jack's riches and grandeur, and the
+Princess was so pleased with his good looks and fine dress that it was
+determined that he should marry the Princess.
+
+But the King thought he would try and see if he were really so nobly
+born and bred as he seemed. So he told his servants to put a mean
+truckle bed in the room in which Jack was to sleep, knowing that no
+noble would put up with such a thing.
+
+When Miss Puss saw this bed she at once guessed what was up. And when
+Jack began to undress to get into bed, she made him stop, and called
+the attendants to say that he could not sleep in such a bed.
+
+So they took him into another bedroom, where there was a fine
+four-poster with a dais, and everything worthy of a noble to sleep
+upon. Then the King became sure that Jack was a real noble, and
+married him soon to his daughter the Princess.
+
+After the wedding feast was over the King told Jack that he and the
+Queen and the Princess would come with him to his castle of
+Cattenborough, and Jack did not know what to do. But Miss Puss told
+him it would be all right if he only didn't speak much while on the
+journey. And that suited Jack very well.
+
+So they all set out in a carriage with four horses, and with the
+King's life-guards riding around it. But Miss Puss ran on in front of
+the carriage, and when she came to a field where men were mowing down
+the hay she pointed to the life-guards riding along, and said: "Men,
+if you do not say that this field belongs to the Earl of Cattenborough
+those soldiers will cut you to pieces with their swords."
+
+So when the carriage came along the King called one of the men to the
+side of it and said, "Whose is this field?"
+
+And the man said, "It belongs to the Earl of Cattenborough."
+
+And the King turned to his son-in-law and said, "I did not know that
+you had estates so near us."
+
+And Jack said, "I had forgotten it myself."
+
+And this only confirmed the King in his idea about Jack's great
+wealth.
+
+A little farther on there was another great field in which men were
+raking hay. And Miss Puss spoke to them as before. So, when the
+carriage came up, they also declared that this field belonged to the
+Earl of Cattenborough. And so it went on through the whole drive. Then
+the King said, "Let us now go to your castle."
+
+Then Jack looked at Miss Puss, and she said: "If your Majesty will but
+wait an hour I will go on before and order the castle to be made ready
+for you."
+
+With that she jumped away and went to the castle of a great ogre and
+asked to see him. When she came into his presence she said:
+
+"I have come to give you warning. The King with all his army is coming
+to the castle and will batter its walls down and kill you if he finds
+you here."
+
+"What shall I do? What shall I do?" said the ogre.
+
+"Is there no place where you can hide yourself?"
+
+"I am too big to hide," said the ogre, "but my mother gave me a
+powder, and when I take that I can make myself as small as I like."
+
+"Well, why not take it now?" said the cat.
+
+[Illustration: The Cat and the Ogre]
+
+And with that he took the powder and shrunk into a little body no
+bigger than a mouse. And thereupon Miss Puss jumped upon him and ate
+him all up, and then went down into the great yard of the castle and
+told the guards that it now belonged to her Master the Earl of
+Cattenborough. Then she ordered them to open the gates and let in the
+King's carriage, which came along just then.
+
+The King was delighted to find what a fine castle his son-in-law
+possessed, and left his daughter the Princess with him at the castle
+while he drove back to his own palace. And Jack and the Princess
+lived happily in the castle.
+
+But one day Miss Puss felt very ill and lay down as if dead, and the
+chamberlain of the castle went to Jack and said:
+
+"My lord, your cat is dead."
+
+And Jack said: "Well, throw her out on the dunghill."
+
+But Miss Puss, when she heard it, called out: "Had you not better
+throw me into the mill stream?"
+
+And Jack remembered where he had come from and was frightened that the
+cat would say. So he ordered the physician of the castle to attend to
+her, and ever after gave her whatever she wanted.
+
+[Illustration: "Had You not Better Throw me into the Millstream?"]
+
+And when the King died he succeeded him, and that was the end of the
+Earl of Cattenborough.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Child Finds the Feather Dress]
+
+THE SWAN MAIDENS
+
+
+There was once a hunter who used often to spend the whole night
+stalking the deer or setting traps for game. Now it happened one night
+that he was watching in a clump of bushes near the lake for some wild
+ducks that he wished to trap. Suddenly he heard, high up in the air, a
+whirring of wings and thought the ducks were coming; and he strung his
+bow and got ready his arrows. But instead of ducks there appeared
+seven maidens all clad in robes made of feathers, and they alighted on
+the banks of the lake, and taking off their robes plunged into the
+waters and bathed and sported in the lake. They were all beautiful,
+but of them all the youngest and smallest pleased most the hunter's
+eye, and he crept forward from the bushes and seized her dress of
+plumage and took it back with him into the bushes.
+
+After the swan maidens had bathed and sported to their heart's
+delight, they came back to the bank wishing to put on their feather
+robes again; and the six eldest found theirs, but the youngest could
+not find hers. They searched and they searched till at last the dawn
+began to appear, and the six sisters called out to her:
+
+"We must away; 'tis the dawn; you meet your fate whatever it be." And
+with that they donned their robes and flew away, and away, and away.
+
+When the hunter saw them fly away he came forward with the feather
+robe in his hand; and the swan maiden begged and begged that he would
+give her back her robe. He gave her his cloak but would not give her
+her robe, feeling that she would fly away. And he made her promise to
+marry him, and took her home, and hid her feather robe where she could
+not find it. So they were married and lived happily together and had
+two fine children, a boy and a girl, who grew up strong and beautiful;
+and their mother loved them with all her heart.
+
+One day her little daughter was playing at hide-and-seek with her
+brother, and she went behind the wainscoting to hide herself, and
+found there a robe all made of feathers, and took it to her mother. As
+soon as she saw it she put it on and said to her daughter:
+
+"Tell father that if he wishes to see me again he must find me in the
+Land East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon;" and with that she flew
+away.
+
+When the hunter came home next morning his little daughter told him
+what had happened and what her mother said. So he set out to find his
+wife in the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon. And he wandered
+for many days till he came across an old man who had fallen on the
+ground, and he lifted him up and helped him to a seat and tended him
+till he felt better.
+
+Then the old man asked him what he was doing and where he was going.
+And he told him all about the swan maidens and his wife, and he asked
+the old man if he had heard of the Land East o' the Sun and West o'
+the Moon.
+
+And the old man said: "No, but I can ask."
+
+Then he uttered a shrill whistle and soon all the plain in front of
+them was filled with all of the beasts of the world, for the old man
+was no less than the King of the Beasts.
+
+And he called out to them: "Who is there here that knows where the
+Land is East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon?" But none of the beasts
+knew.
+
+Then the old man said to the hunter: "You must go seek my brother who
+is the King of the Birds," and told him how to find his brother.
+
+And after a time he found the King of the Birds, and told him what he
+wanted. So the King of the Birds whistled loud and shrill, and soon
+the sky was darkened with all the birds of the air, who came around
+him. Then he asked:
+
+"Which of you knows where is the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the
+Moon?"
+
+And none answered, and the King of the Birds said:
+
+"Then you must consult my brother the King of the Fishes," and he told
+him how to find him.
+
+And the hunter went on, and he went on, and he went on, till he came
+to the King of the Fishes, and he told him what he wanted. And the
+King of the Fishes went to the shore of the sea and summoned all the
+fishes of the sea. And when they came around him he called out:
+
+"Which of you knows where is the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the
+Moon?"
+
+And none of them answered, till at last a dolphin that had come late
+called out:
+
+"I have heard that at the top of the Crystal Mountain lies the Land
+East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon; but how to get there I know not
+save that it is near the Wild Forest."
+
+So the hunter thanked the King of the Fishes and went to the Wild
+Forest. And as he got near there he found two men quarrelling, and as
+he came near they came towards him and asked him to settle their
+dispute.
+
+"Now what is it?" said the hunter.
+
+[Illustration: The Dolphin who Came Late]
+
+"Our father has just died and he has left but two things, this cap
+which, whenever you wear it, nobody can see you, and these shoon,
+which will carry you through the air to whatever place you will. Now I
+being the elder claim the right of choice, which of these two I shall
+have; and he declares that, as the younger, he has the right to the
+shoon. Which do you think is right?"
+
+So the hunter thought and thought, and at last he said:
+
+"It is difficult to decide, but the best thing I can think of is for
+you to race from here to that tree yonder, and whoever gets back to me
+first I will hand him either the shoes or the cap, whichever he
+wishes."
+
+So he took the shoes in one hand and the cap in the other, and waited
+till they had started off running towards the tree. And as soon as
+they had started running towards the tree he put on the shoes of
+swiftness and placed the invisible cap on his head and wished himself
+in the Land East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon. And he flew, and he
+flew, and he flew, over seven Bends, and seven Glens, and seven
+Mountain Moors, till at last he came to the Crystal Mountain. And on
+the top of that, as the dolphin had said, there was the Land East o'
+the Sun and West o' the Moon.
+
+Now when he got there he took off his invisible cap and shoes of
+swiftness and asked who ruled over the Land; and he was told that
+there was a King who had seven daughters who dressed in swans'
+feathers and flew wherever they wished.
+
+Then the hunter knew that he had come to the Land of his wife. And he
+went boldly to the King and said:
+
+"Hail O King, I have come to seek my wife."
+
+And the King said, "Who is she?"
+
+And the hunter said, "Your youngest daughter." Then he told him how he
+had won her.
+
+Then the King said: "If you can tell her from her sisters then I know
+that what you say is true." And he summoned his seven daughters to
+him, and there they all were, dressed in their robes of feathers and
+looking each like all the rest.
+
+So the hunter said: "If I may take each of them by the hand I will
+surely know my wife"; for when she had dwelt with him she had sewn the
+little shifts and dresses of her children, and the forefinger of her
+right hand had the marks of the needle.
+
+And when he had taken the hand of each of the swan maidens he soon
+found which was his wife and claimed her for his own. Then the King
+gave them great gifts and sent them by a sure way down the Crystal
+Mountain.
+
+And after a while they reached home, and lived happily together ever
+afterwards.
+
+[Illustration: _East o' the Sun & West o' the Moon_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Androcles and the Lion]
+
+ANDROCLES AND THE LION
+
+
+It happened in the old days at Rome that a slave named Androcles
+escaped from his master and fled into the forest, and he wandered
+there for a long time till he was weary and well nigh spent with
+hunger and despair. Just then he heard a lion near him moaning and
+groaning and at times roaring terribly. Tired as he was Androcles rose
+up and rushed away, as he thought, from the lion; but as he made his
+way through the bushes he stumbled over the root of a tree and fell
+down lamed, and when he tried to get up there he saw the lion coming
+towards him, limping on three feet and holding his fore-paw in front
+of him. Poor Androcles was in despair; he had not strength to rise and
+run away, and there was the lion coming upon him. But when the great
+beast came up to him instead of attacking him it kept on moaning and
+groaning and looking at Androcles, who saw that the lion was holding
+out his right paw, which was covered with blood and much swollen.
+Looking more closely at it Androcles saw a great big thorn pressed
+into the paw, which was the cause of all the lion's trouble. Plucking
+up courage he seized hold of the thorn and drew it out of the lion's
+paw, who roared with pain when the thorn came out, but soon after
+found such relief from it that he fawned upon Androcles and showed, in
+every way that he knew, to whom he owed the relief. Instead of eating
+him up he brought him a young deer that he had slain, and Androcles
+managed to make a meal from it. For some time the lion continued to
+bring the game he had killed to Androcles, who became quite fond of
+the huge beast.
+
+But one day a number of soldiers came marching through the forest and
+found Androcles, and as he could not explain what he was doing they
+took him prisoner and brought him back to the town from which he had
+fled. Here his master soon found him and brought him before the
+authorities, and he was condemned to death because he had fled from
+his master. Now it used to be the custom to throw murderers and other
+criminals to the lions in a huge circus, so that while the criminals
+were punished the public could enjoy the spectacle of a combat between
+them and the wild beasts. So Androcles was condemned to be thrown to
+the lions, and on the appointed day he was led forth into the Arena
+and left there alone with only a spear to protect him from the lion.
+The Emperor was in the royal box that day and gave the signal for the
+lion to come out and attack Androcles. But when it came out of its
+cage and got near Androcles, what do you think it did? Instead of
+jumping upon him it fawned upon him and stroked him with its paw and
+made no attempt to do him any harm. It was of course the lion which
+Androcles had met in the forest. The Emperor, surprised at seeing such
+a strange behaviour in so cruel a beast, summoned Androcles to him and
+asked him how it happened that this particular lion had lost all its
+cruelty of disposition. So Androcles told the Emperor all that had
+happened to him and how the lion was showing its gratitude for his
+having relieved it of the thorn. Thereupon the Emperor pardoned
+Androcles and ordered his master to set him free, while the lion was
+taken back into the forest and let loose to enjoy liberty once more.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Day-Dreaming]
+
+DAY-DREAMING
+
+
+Now there was once a man at Bagdad who had seven sons, and when he
+died he left to each of them one hundred dirhems; and his fifth son,
+called Alnaschar the Babbler, invested all this money in some
+glassware, and, putting it in a big tray, from which to show and sell
+it, he sat down on a raised bench, at the foot of a wall, against
+which he leant back, placing the tray on the ground in front of him.
+As he sat he began day-dreaming and said to himself: "I have laid out
+a hundred dirhems on this glass. Now I will surely sell it for two
+hundred, and with it I will buy more glass and sell that for four
+hundred; nor will I cease to buy and sell till I become master of
+much wealth. With this I will buy all kinds of merchandise and jewels
+and perfumes and gain great profit on them till, God willing, I will
+make my capital a hundred thousand dinars or two million dirhems. Then
+I will buy a handsome house, together with slaves and horses and
+trappings of gold, and eat and drink, nor will there be a singing girl
+in the city but I will have her to sing to me." This he said looking
+at the tray before him with glassware worth a hundred dirhems. Then he
+continued: "When I have amassed a hundred thousand dinars I will send
+out marriage-brokers to demand for me in marriage the hand of the
+Vizier's daughter, for I hear that she is perfect in beauty and of
+surpassing grace. I will give her a dowry of a thousand dinars, and if
+her father consent, 'tis well; if not, I will take her by force, in
+spite of him. When I return home, I will buy ten little slaves and
+clothes for myself such as are worn by kings and sultans and get a
+saddle of gold, set thick with precious jewels. Then I will mount and
+parade the city, with slaves before and behind me, while the people
+will salute me and call down blessings upon me: after which I will go
+to the Vizier, the girl's father, with slaves behind and before me, as
+well as on either hand. When the Vizier sees me, he will rise and
+seating me in his own place, sit down below me, because I am his
+son-in-law. Now I will have with me two slaves with purses, in each a
+thousand dinars, and I will give him the thousand dinars of the dowry
+and make him a present of another thousand dinars so that he may
+recognize my nobility and generosity and greatness of mind and the
+littleness of the world in my eyes; and for every ten words he will
+say to me, I will answer him only two. Then I will return to my house,
+and if any one come to me on the bride's part, I will make him a
+present of money and clothe him in a robe of honour; but if he bring
+me a present I will return it to him and will not accept it so that
+they may know how great of soul I am." After a while Alnaschar
+continued: "Then I will command them to bring the Vizier's daughter to
+me in state and will get ready my house in fine condition to receive
+her. When the time of the unveiling of the bride is come, I will put
+on my richest clothes and sit down on a couch of brocaded silk,
+leaning on a cushion and turning my eyes neither to the right nor to
+the left, to show the haughtiness of my mind and the seriousness of my
+character. My bride shall stand before me like the full moon, in her
+robes and ornaments, and I, out of my pride and my disdain, will not
+look at her, till all who are present shall say to me: 'O my lord, thy
+wife and thy handmaid stands before thee; deign to look upon her, for
+standing is irksome to her.' And they will kiss the earth before me
+many times, whereupon I will lift my eyes and give one glance at her,
+then bend down my head again. Then they will carry her to the
+bride-chamber, and meanwhile I will rise and change my clothes for a
+richer suit. When they bring in the bride for the second time, I will
+not look at her till they have implored me several times, when I will
+glance at her and bow down my head; nor will I cease doing thus, till
+they have made an end of parading and displaying her. Then I will
+order one of my slaves to fetch a purse, and, giving it to the
+tire-women, command them to lead her to the bride-chamber. When they
+leave me alone with the bride, I will not look at her or speak to her,
+but will sit by her with averted face, that she may say I am high of
+soul. Presently her mother will come to me and kiss my head and hands
+and say to me: 'O my lord, look on thy handmaid, for she longs for thy
+favour, and heal her spirit,' But I will give her no answer; and when
+she sees this, she will come and kiss my feet and say, 'O my lord,
+verily my daughter is a beautiful girl, who has never seen man; and if
+thou show her this aversion, her heart will break; so do thou be
+gracious to her and speak to her.' Then she will rise and fetch a cup
+of wine, and her daughter will take it and come to me; but I will
+leave her standing before me, while I recline upon a cushion of cloth
+of gold, and will not look at her to show the haughtiness of my heart,
+so that she will think me to be a Sultan of exceeding dignity and will
+say to me: 'O my lord, for God's sake, do not refuse to take the cup
+from thy servant's hand, for indeed I am thy handmaid.' But I will not
+speak to her, and she will press me, saying: 'Needs must thou drink
+it,' and put it to my lips. Then I will shake my fist in her face and
+spurn her with my foot thus." So saying, he gave a kick with his foot
+and knocked over the tray of glass, which fell over to the ground, and
+all that was in it was broken.
+
+
+
+
+KEEP COOL
+
+
+There was once a man and he had three sons, and when he died they all
+had to go out to seek a living. So the eldest went out first, leaving
+his two brothers at home, and went to a neighbouring farmer to try and
+get work from him.
+
+"Well, well, my man," said the farmer, "I can give you work but on
+only one condition."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"I cannot abear any high talk on my farm. You must keep cool and not
+lose your temper."
+
+"Oh, never bother about that," said the youngster, "I never lose my
+temper, or scarcely ever."
+
+"Ah, but if you do," said the farmer, "I make it a condition that I
+shall tear a strip of your skin from your nape to your waist; that
+will make a pretty ribbon to tie around the throat of my dog there."
+
+"That doesn't suit me," was the reply. "So fare thee well, master, I
+must try another place."
+
+"Keep cool, keep cool," said the farmer. "I am a just man; what's good
+for the man I consider good for the master. So if I should lose my
+temper I am quite willing that you should take the ribbon of flesh
+from my back."
+
+"Oh, if that's so," said the youngster, "I'll agree to stay. But we
+must have it in black and white."
+
+So they sent for the notary and wrote it all down that if either lost
+his temper he should also lose a strip of skin from his back. But the
+eldest son had not been in the house a week when the master gave him
+so hard a task that he lost his temper and had to give up a strip of
+skin from his back. So he went home and told his brothers about it.
+
+Well, the brothers were savage at hearing what he had suffered. And
+the second son went to the same man in the hope of getting revenge for
+his brother. But the same thing happened to him, and he had to come
+with a strip of skin from his back like his elder brother.
+
+Now the third son, whose name was Jack, made up his mind he wouldn't
+be done like the other two. And he went to the man and he engaged
+himself to serve him for the same wage but on the same conditions that
+his two brothers had done.
+
+The very first morning that Jack had to go out to work his master gave
+him a piece of dry bread and told him to mind the sheep.
+
+"Is this all I'm to get to eat?" said Jack.
+
+"Why, yes," said the master; "there'll be supper when you come home."
+
+Jack was going to complain when his master called out to him, "Keep
+cool, Jack, keep cool," and pointed to his back.
+
+So Jack swallowed his rage and went out into the field. But on his way
+he met a man, to whom he sold one of the sheep for five shillings, and
+went and bought enough to eat and drink for a whole week.
+
+When he got home that evening his master began to count the sheep, and
+when he found one was missing, he said to Jack:
+
+"You've let one of the sheep run away."
+
+"No, no, sir," said Jack, "I sold him to a man passing along."
+
+"You shouldn't have done that without my telling you; but where's the
+money?"
+
+"Oh, with the money," said Jack, "I went and bought me some eats." And
+he showed him what he had bought.
+
+The master was going to fly in a rage, but Jack said to him: "Keep
+cool, master, keep cool," and pointed to his back. So he remembered
+and said nothing more.
+
+The next day Jack was ordered to take the pigs to market to sell them,
+and after he had cut off all their tails he sold them and pocketed the
+money; and then he went to a marsh near the farm and planted all the
+tails in the marsh.
+
+When he got home the master asked him if he had sold the pigs.
+
+He said: "No, they all rushed into the marsh at the foot of the
+valley."
+
+"I don't believe you," said the master, and was going to get into a
+rage when Jack said to him:
+
+"Keep cool, master, keep cool."
+
+So he went with Jack to the marsh, and when he saw the pigs' tails all
+peeping out the marsh he went and plucked one of them out of the
+ground, and Jack said:
+
+"There, you've torn the tail from the poor pig's back."
+
+Then the master was going to get into a rage again but Jack said:
+"Keep cool, master, keep cool," and pointed to his back.
+
+Next day the master didn't like sending Jack out with the animals or
+else he might sell them to get some dinner. So he said to him:
+
+"Jack, I want you today to clean the horses and the stable within and
+without."
+
+"Very well, master," said Jack, and went to the stable; and he
+whitewashed it within and he whitewashed it without. Then he went to
+the horses and killed them and took out their insides and cleaned them
+within; and then he washed their skins.
+
+In the evening the master came to see how Jack had got on with his
+work and was delighted to find the stable looking so clean.
+
+"But where are the horses?" he said; and Jack pointed to them lying
+dead on their backs.
+
+"Why, what have you done?" said the master.
+
+"You told me to clean them within and without and how could I clean
+them within without killing them?" said Jack.
+
+Then the master was just going to fly into a rage, when Jack said to
+him: "Keep cool, master, keep cool," and pointed to his back.
+
+So next day the master had sent Jack out with the sheep, but so that
+he should not sell any of them to get money for his lunch he sent his
+wife with them telling her to watch Jack from behind a bush, and if he
+tried to sell any of the sheep to stop him. But Jack saw her and
+didn't say anything or try and sell any of the sheep.
+
+But next day, when he went out with them, he took with him his gun,
+and when the farmer's wife got behind the bush to watch him, he called
+out: "Ah, wolf, I see you," and fired his gun at her and hit her in
+the leg. She screamed out, and the master came running up and said:
+
+"What's this, Jack, what's this?"
+
+Then Jack said: "Why, master, I thought that was a wolf and I shot my
+gun at it and it turned out to be the missus."
+
+"How dare you, you scoundrel, shoot my wife!" cried out the master.
+
+"Don't be in a rage, master, don't be in a rage," said Jack.
+
+"Anybody would be in a rage if his wife was shot," said the master.
+
+"Well, then," said Jack, "I'll have that strip off your back." And as
+there were witnesses present the master had to let Jack take a strip
+of skin from his back.
+
+And with that he went home to his brothers.
+
+[Illustration: The Pig's Tail]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Dummy]
+
+THE MASTER THIEF
+
+
+There was once a farmer who had a son named Will, and he sent him out
+in the world to learn a trade and seek his fortune. Now he hadn't gone
+far when he was stopped by a band of robbers who called out to him:
+
+"Your purse or your life!"
+
+And he gave them his purse and said: "That is an easy way of getting
+money, I'd like to be a robber myself."
+
+So they agreed to take him into their band if he could show he was
+able to do a robber's work. And the first person who went through the
+wood again they sent Will to see if he could rob him. So he went up to
+the man and said to him:
+
+"Your purse or your life!"
+
+The man gave him his purse, whereupon Will took all the money out of
+it and gave it back to the man and took the purse back to the robbers,
+who said:
+
+"Well, what luck?"
+
+"Oh, I got his purse from him quite easily; here it is."
+
+"Well, what about the money?" said they.
+
+"Well, that I gave back to him. You only asked me to say, 'Your purse
+or your life.'"
+
+At that the robbers roared with laughter and said: "You'll never be a
+thief."
+
+Will was quite ashamed of making such a fool of himself and determined
+he would do better next time.
+
+So one day he saw two farmers driving a herd of cattle to market, and
+told the robbers that he knew a way to take the cattle from them
+without fighting for them.
+
+"If you do that," said they, "you will be a Master Thief."
+
+Then Will went a little way ahead of the robbers with a stout cord,
+which he tied under his armpits and then fixed himself upon a branch
+of a tree over the road so that it looked as if he had been hanged.
+
+When the farmers came with their cattle they said: "There's one of the
+robbers hung up for an example," and drove their cattle on farther.
+
+Then Will got down, and running across a bypath got again in front of
+the farmers and hung himself up as before on a tree by the side of the
+road.
+
+When the farmers came up to him one of them said: "Goodness gracious
+me, why there's the same robber hanged up here again."
+
+"Oh, that's not the same robber," said the other.
+
+"Yes, it is," said the first, "for I noticed he had a white horn
+button on his coat, and see, there it is. It must be the same man."
+
+"How could that be?" said the other. "We left that one hanging up dead
+half a mile back."
+
+"I am sure it is."
+
+"I am certain it isn't."
+
+"Well, give a good look at him, and we'll go back and see if it isn't
+the same."
+
+So the farmers went back to look, and Will took their cattle and drove
+them back to the robbers, who agreed that he was a Master Thief.
+
+He stopped with them for several years and made much money, and then
+drove back in a carriage and pair to his father's farm.
+
+When he came there his father came to the carriage and bowed to him
+and asked him, "What is your pleasure, sir?"
+
+"Oh, I want to make some inquiries about a young fellow named William
+who used to be on this farm. What has become of him?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know; he was my son and I have not heard from him for
+many years; I am afraid he has come to no good."
+
+"Look at me closely and see if you see any resemblance to him."
+
+Then the farmer recognized Will and took him into the farmhouse and
+called Will's mother to come and welcome him back.
+
+"So, Will, you've come back in a carriage and pair," said she. "How
+have you earnt so much money?"
+
+So Will told his mother that he had become a Master Thief but begged
+her not to mention it to any one, but to tell them that he had been an
+explorer and had found gold.
+
+Well, the very next day a neighbouring gossip called in upon Will's
+mother and asked her to tell her the news about Will and what he had
+been doing.
+
+So she said: "Oh, Will has been an exploiter, I mean explorer, but he
+really was a Master Thief. But you mustn't tell anybody; you'll
+promise, won't you?"
+
+So the gossip promised, but of course the moment she got home she told
+all about Will being a Master Thief.
+
+Now the lord of the village soon heard of this, and he called Will up
+to him and said: "I hear you are a Master Thief. You know that you
+deserve death for that. But if you can prove that you are really a
+master in your thievery I will let you go free. First let us see
+whether you can steal my horse out of my stable to-night."
+
+To prevent his horse being stolen, the lord ordered it to be saddled
+and put a stable boy on it, telling him to stop there all night.
+
+Will took two flasks of brandy into one of which he had poured a drug,
+and dressing himself as an old woman he went to the lord's stable late
+at night and asked to rest there as it was so cold and she was so
+tired.
+
+The stable boy pointed to some straw in the corner and told the woman
+she might rest there for a time.
+
+When she sat down she took one of the brandy flasks out of her pocket
+and drank it off, saying, "Ah, that warms one! Would you like to have
+a drink?"
+
+And when the stable boy said "Yes," Will gave him the other flask, and
+as soon as he had drunk it he fell dead asleep.
+
+So Will lifted him off of the horse and put him on the cross-bar of
+the stable as if he were riding, and then he got on the horse and rode
+away.
+
+In the morning the lord went down to the stable and there he saw the
+stable boy riding the cross-bar and his horse gone.
+
+Then Will rode up to the stable on the lord's horse and said: "Am I
+not a Master Thief?"
+
+"Oh, stealing my horse was not so hard. Let us see if you can steal
+the sheet from off my bed to-night. But, look out, if you come near my
+bedroom I shall shoot you."
+
+That night Will took a dummy man and propped it up on a ladder, which
+he put up to the lord's bedroom.
+
+And when the lord saw the dummy coming in at the window he shot his
+pistol at it and it fell down. He rushed downstairs and out into the
+open air looking to see if he had shot Will.
+
+Meanwhile Will went up to the lord's bedroom and, speaking in the
+lord's voice, said to his wife: "Give me the sheet, my dear, to wrap
+the body of that poor Master Thief in."
+
+So she gave him the sheet and he went away.
+
+Next morning Will brought up the sheet to the lord, who said: "That
+was a good trick, I must confess. But if you want really to prove that
+you are a Master Thief bring to me the priest in a bag, and then I
+will own your mastery."
+
+So that night Will took a number of crabs and tied candle ends upon
+them, and taking them to the cemetery lit the candle ends and let them
+loose.
+
+When the priest of the village saw these lights moving over the
+cemetery he came to the door and watched them and called out:
+
+"What is that?"
+
+Now Will had dressed himself up like an angel.
+
+"It is the last day of judgment, and I have come for thee, Father
+Lawrence, to carry thee to heaven. Come within this bag, and in a
+short time thou wilt be in thine appointed place."
+
+So Father Lawrence crept within the bag, and Will dragged him along,
+and when he bumped against the ground Father Lawrence said:
+
+"Oh, we must be going through purgatory."
+
+And then Will took him to the hen-coops and threw him in among the
+chickens and ducks and geese, and Father Lawrence said:
+
+"We must be getting near the angels for I hear the rustling of their
+wings."
+
+So Will went up to the lord's house and made him come down to the
+hen-coops and there showed him the priest in the bag, and the lord
+said:
+
+"I do not know how you do these things. I cannot tell if you are
+really a Master Thief unless you take my horse from under me. If you
+can do that I will call you the Master of all Master Thieves."
+
+Well, next day, Will dressed himself up as an old woman, and taking a
+cart with an old horse put in it a cask of beer, and then went driving
+along with his thumb in the bunghole.
+
+Soon after he met the lord on horseback who asked him if he had seen a
+man like Will lurking about there in the forest.
+
+"I think I have," said Will, "and could bring him to you if you
+wanted. But I can't leave this cask before the taps come out; I have
+to keep my thumb in the bunghole."
+
+"Oh, I will do that," said the lord, "if you will only go and get that
+man. Take my horse and run him down."
+
+So Will got on the lord's horse and rode off, leaving the nobleman
+with his thumb in the bunghole. He waited and he waited and he waited
+till at last he drove in the cart back to his house, and there he saw
+no less a person than Will himself riding his horse.
+
+Then the noble said unto Will: "You are indeed a Master Thief. Go your
+way in peace."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Anima Goes down the Hole]
+
+THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a king and queen, as many a one has been,
+and they had three daughters, all of them beautiful; but the most
+beautiful of all was the youngest whose name was Anima. Now it
+happened one day that all three sisters were playing in the meadows,
+and Anima saw a bush with lovely flowers. As she wished to carry it
+home to plant in her own garden she plucked at the root and plucked
+and plucked again. At last it gave way, and she saw beneath it a
+stairway going down farther into the earth. Being a brave girl and
+very curious as to where this could lead to, without calling her
+sisters, she crept down the stairs for a long, long way, till at last
+she came out into the open air again in a country which she had never
+seen before, and not far away, in front of her, she saw a magnificent
+palace.
+
+Anima ran towards it, and when she came to the door she knocked at the
+knocker and it opened without anybody being there. So she went in and
+found all inside richly bedecked with marble walls and rich trappings;
+and, as she went along, lovely music broke out and came with her
+wherever she went. At last she came to a room with cosy couches, and
+she threw herself into one because she was tired with her searching.
+Scarcely had she done so, when there appeared a table coming towards
+her on wheels, without anybody moving it, and upon the table were
+delightful fruits and cakes and cool drinks of all kinds. So Anima
+took as much as she needed and fell into slumber and did not awake
+till it was getting dark. And then appeared through the air two large
+candlesticks, each with three candles in them; and they swam through
+the air and settled upon the tables near her, so that she had plenty
+of light. But she cried out: "Oh, I must go back to my father and
+mother; how shall I go? How shall I go?"
+
+Then a sweet voice near her spoke out and said: "Abide with me and be
+my bride, and thou shalt have all thy heart desires."
+
+But Anima cried out in fear and trembling: "But who art thou? Who art
+thou? Come forth and let me see thee."
+
+But the voice replied: "Nay, nay, that is forbidden. Never must thou
+look upon my face or we must part, for my mother, the Queen, wishes
+not that I should wed."
+
+So sweet was his voice and so lonely did Anima feel, that she
+consented to become his bride, and they lived happily together, though
+he never came near her till all was dark, so that she could not see
+him. But after a time Anima became weary even with all these
+splendours and happiness, and wished to see her own people again, and
+said to her husband:
+
+"Please may I go home and see my father and my mother and my dear
+sisters?"
+
+"Nay, nay, child," said the voice of her husband, "ill will come of it
+if thou seest them again, and thou and I must part."
+
+But she kept on begging him to let her return to her people for a
+visit, or at least to let them come and see her, till at last he
+consented and sent a message to her father and mother and sisters,
+asking them to come and spend some days with her, at a time when he
+himself would have to be absent.
+
+So the King and Queen and Anima's two sisters came and wondered at
+the splendours of her new home, and, above all, was surprised to find
+that they were waited on by invisible hands, who did all for them that
+they could wish for. But Anima's sisters soon became both curious and
+envious; they could not guess who or what her husband was, and envied
+her having so wonderful a household.
+
+So one of them said to her: "But Anima, how marry a man without ever
+seeing him? There must be some reason why he will not show himself;
+perhaps he is deformed, or maybe he is some beast transformed."
+
+But Anima laughed and said: "He is no beast, that I am sure; and see
+how kind he is to me. I do not care if he is not as handsome as he
+does."
+
+Still the sisters kept on insisting that there must be something wrong
+where there was something concealed, and at last they got their mother
+the Queen to say to her as she was leaving: "Now, Anima, I think it
+right to know who and what thy husband is. Wait till he is asleep and
+light a lamp, and then see what he is."
+
+Soon after this they all departed. And the same night her husband came
+to Anima again, but she had already prepared a lamp of oil with a
+spark of fire ready to kindle it. And when she heard him sleeping by
+her side she lit the candle and looked at him. She was delighted to
+find that he was most handsome, with a strong and well-made body. But
+as she was looking at him her hand trembled with delight and three
+drops of oil fell upon his cheek from the lamp she was holding. Then
+he woke up and saw her, and knew that she had broken her promise, and
+said:
+
+"Oh, Anima, oh, Anima, why hast thou done this? Here we part until
+thou canst persuade my mother the Queen to let thee see me again."
+
+[Illustration: _The Lamp_]
+
+With that came a rumbling of thunder and her lamp went out, and Anima
+fell to the ground in a swoon. And when she awoke the palace had
+disappeared and she was on a bleak, bleak moor. She walked and she
+walked till she came to a house by the wayside where an old woman
+received her and gave her something to eat and drink, and then asked
+Anima how she came there. So Anima told all that had happened to her,
+and the old woman said:
+
+"Thou hast married my nephew, my sister's son, and I fear she will
+never forgive thee. But pluck up courage, go to her and demand thy
+husband, and she'll have to give him up to thee if thou canst do all
+that she demands from thee. Take this twig; if she asks what I think
+she will ask, strike it on the ground thrice and help will come to
+thee."
+
+Then she told Anima the way to her husband's mother, and, as it was
+far distant, gave her directions where she could find another sister
+of hers who might help her. So she came to another house along the way
+where she saw another old woman, to whom she told her story, and this
+old woman, the Queen's sister, gave her a raven's feather and told
+her how to use it.
+
+At last Anima came to the palace of the Queen, the mother of her
+invisible husband, and when she came into her presence demanded to see
+him.
+
+"What, thou low-born mortal," cried the Queen; "how didst thou dare to
+wed my son?"
+
+"It was his choice," said Anima, "and I am now his wife. Surely you
+will let me see him once more."
+
+"Well," said the Queen, "if thou canst do what I demand of thee thou
+shalt see my son again. And first go into that barn where my stupid
+stewards have poured together all the wheat and oats and rice into one
+great heap. If by nightfall thou canst separate them into three heaps
+perhaps I may grant thy request."
+
+So Anima was led to the great barn of the Queen and there was a huge
+heap of grain all mixed together, and she was left alone, and the barn
+was closed upon her. Then she bethought herself of the twig that the
+Queen's sister had given her, and she struck it thrice upon the
+ground, whereupon thousands of ants came out of the ground and began
+to work upon the heap of grain, some of them taking the wheat to one
+corner, some the oats to another, and the rest carrying off the grains
+of rice to a third. By nightfall all the grain had been separated, and
+when the Queen came to let out Anima she found the task had been
+done.
+
+"Thou hast had help," she cried; "we'll see to-morrow if thou canst do
+something by thyself."
+
+Next day the Queen took her into a large loft at the top of the palace
+almost filled with feathers of geese, of eider ducks, and of swans,
+and from her cupboard she took twelve mattresses and said:
+
+"See these mattresses; by the end of the day thou must fill four of
+them with swans' feathers, four of them with eider-down, and the rest
+with feathers of geese. Do that and then we will see."
+
+With that she left Anima and closed and locked the door behind her.
+And Anima remembered what the other Queen's sister had given her, and
+took out the raven's feather and waved it thrice. Immediately birds,
+and birds, and birds came flying through the windows, and each of them
+picked out different kinds of feathers and placed them in the
+mattresses, so that long before night the twelve mattresses were
+filled as the Queen had ordered.
+
+Again at nightfall the Queen came in, and as soon as she saw that the
+second task had been carried out, she said:
+
+"Again thou hast had help; to-morrow thou shalt have something to do
+which thou alone canst carry out."
+
+Next day the Queen summoned her and gave her a small flask and a
+letter and said to her:
+
+"Take these to my sister, the Queen of the Nether-World, and bring
+back what she will give to thee safely, and then I may let thee see my
+son."
+
+"How can I find your sister?" said Anima.
+
+"That thou must find for thyself," and left her.
+
+Poor Anima did not know which way to go, but as she walked along the
+voice of some one invisible to her said softly:
+
+"Take with thee a copper coin and a loaf of bread and go down that
+deep defile there till thou comest to a deep river and there thou wilt
+see an old man ferrying people across the river. Put the coin between
+your teeth and let him take it from you, and he will carry you across,
+but speak not to him. Then, on the other side, thou wilt come to a
+dark cave, and at the entrance is a savage dog; give him the loaf of
+bread and he will let thee pass and thou wilt soon come to the Queen
+of the Nether-World. Take what she gives thee, but beware lest thou
+eat anything or sit down while thou art within the cave."
+
+Anima recognized the voice of her husband and did all that he had told
+her, till she came to the Queen of the Nether-World, who read the
+letter she had handed to her. Then she offered Anima cake and wine,
+but she refused, shaking her head, but saying nothing. Then the Queen
+of the Nether-World gave her a curiously wrought box and said to her:
+
+"Take this, I pray thee, to my sister, but beware lest thou open it on
+the way or ill may befall thee," and then dismissed her.
+
+[Illustration: The Dog]
+
+Anima went back past the great dog and crossed the dark river. When
+she got into the forest beyond she could not resist the temptation to
+open the box, and when she did so out jumped a number of little dolls,
+which commenced dancing about in front of her and around her and
+amused her much by their playful antics. But soon the night was coming
+on, and she wanted to put them into the box, and they ran away and hid
+behind the trees, and Anima knew that she could not get them back. So
+she sat down upon the ground and wept, and wept, and wept. But at last
+she heard the voice of her husband once more, who said:
+
+[Illustration: The Casket]
+
+"See what thy curiosity has again brought upon thee; thou canst not
+bring back the box to my mother just as my aunt the Queen of the
+Nether-World has given it to you, and so we shall not see one another
+again."
+
+But at this Anima burst out into weeping and wailing so piteously that
+he took compassion on her and said:
+
+"See that golden bough on yonder tree; pluck it and strike the ground
+three times with it and see what thou wilt see."
+
+Anima did as she had been told, and soon the little dolls came running
+from behind the trees and jumped of their own accord into the box; and
+she closed it quickly and took it back to the Queen, her husband's
+mother.
+
+The Queen opened the box, and when she found all the little dolls were
+in it laughed aloud and said:
+
+"I know who has helped thee; I cannot help myself; I suppose thou must
+have my son."
+
+And as soon as she had said this Anima's husband appeared and took her
+to him, and they lived happy ever afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Master-Maid with the Glass Axe]
+
+THE MASTER-MAID
+
+
+There was once a king and a queen and they had a bonny boy whom they
+loved beyond anything. Now when he was grown up into a fine young
+prince, the King, his father, went a-hunting one day and lost his way
+in the forest, and when he came through it he found a raging stream
+between him and his palace. He did not know how to get home, when
+suddenly a huge giant came out of the forest and said:
+
+"What would you give if I carried you across?"
+
+"Anything, anything," said the King.
+
+"Will you give me the first thing that meets you as you come to the
+palace gate?"
+
+The King thought for a while and then remembered that whenever he came
+to the gate of the palace his favourite deerhound Bevis always came to
+greet him. So, though he was sorry to lose him, he thought it was
+worth while, and agreed with the giant.
+
+Thereupon the giant took the King upon his shoulders and wading across
+the raging stream landed him on the farther bank and saying to him,
+"Remember what you have promised," went back again to the other side.
+
+The King soon found his way towards the palace, but as he came to the
+palace gate it happened that his son Prince Edgar was standing there,
+and before Bevis the hound could dash out to greet his master, Prince
+Edgar had rushed towards his father and caught him by the hand. The
+King was rather startled but thought to himself:
+
+"Oh, how will the giant know who met me? After all I intended to give
+him Bevis, and that's what I'll do when he comes."
+
+The next day the giant came to the castle gates and asked to see the
+King, and when he was admitted to his presence he said:
+
+"I come for your promise."
+
+"Bring Bevis the hound," said the King to his attendants.
+
+But the giant said: "I want no hound; give me your Prince."
+
+The King was alarmed at finding that the giant knew who had met him;
+but he told him that the Prince was away, but he would send and summon
+him. Then he called his High Steward and told him to dress up the
+herd-boy of the palace in some of the Prince's clothes. And when this
+was done he gave him to the giant, who hoisted him on his shoulder and
+strode off with him.
+
+When they had gone a little way along the herd-boy in the Prince's
+suit called out:
+
+"Stop, stop, I am hungry; this is the time the herd rests and I have
+my luncheon."
+
+Then the giant knew that he had been deceived and went back to the
+King's palace and said to him:
+
+"Take your herd-boy and give me the Prince."
+
+The King was again startled to find that the giant had found out his
+trick, but thought to himself:
+
+"Well, he didn't find out at once; we'll have another try," and
+ordered his Steward to dress up the shepherd boy in the Prince's
+clothes and give him to the giant.
+
+Again the giant strode off with the shepherd boy in Prince's clothes
+upon his shoulder, and they had not gone far when the boy called out:
+
+[Illustration: _The Prince wants his Lunch_]
+
+"Stop, stop, it is time for lunch; this is when the sheep all rest."
+
+Then again the giant knew that he had been tricked and rushed back in
+a rage to the King's palace and threw the shepherd boy to the ground
+and called out:
+
+"Take your shepherd boy and give me the Prince you promised, or it
+will be worse for you."
+
+This time the King dared not refuse and called Prince Edgar to him and
+gave him to the giant, who seized him as before and put him on his
+shoulder.
+
+After they had gone a little way, the Prince called out:
+
+"'Tis time to stop; this is the time I have always lunched with my
+father the King and my mother the Queen."
+
+Then the giant knew that he had got the right Prince and took him home
+to his castle. When he got him there he gave him his supper and told
+him that he would have to work for him and that his first work would
+be next day to clean out the stable.
+
+"That's not much," thought the Prince, and went to bed quite happy and
+comfortable.
+
+Next day the giant took Edgar into the giant's stable, which was full
+of straw and dirt and all huddled up, and pointing to a pitchfork
+said:
+
+"Clear all of this straw out of this stable by to-night," and left him
+to his task.
+
+The Prince thought this was an easy thing to do, and before starting
+went to get a drink at the well, and there he saw a most beautiful
+maiden sitting by the well and knitting.
+
+"Who are you?" said she.
+
+And so he told her all that had happened and said:
+
+"At any rate I have an easy master; all he has given me to do is to
+clear out the stable."
+
+"That is not so easy as you think," said the maid. "How are you going
+to do it?"
+
+"With a pitchfork."
+
+"You will find that not so easy; if you try to use the pitchfork in
+the ordinary way, the more you shove the more there will be; but turn
+the pitchfork upside-down and push with the handle and all the straw
+and stuff will run away from it."
+
+So Prince Edgar went back to the stable, and sure enough, when he
+tried to push the straw with the fork it only grew more and more, but
+if he turned the handle towards it the straw moved away from the fork
+and so he soon cleared it out of the stable.
+
+When the giant came home the first thing he did was to go to the
+stable; and when he saw it had all been cleared out he said to the
+Prince:
+
+"Ah, you've been talking to my Master-Maid. Well, to-morrow you'll
+have to cut down that clump of trees."
+
+"Very well, Master," said Prince Edgar, and thought that would not be
+difficult.
+
+But next morning the giant gave him an axe made of glass and told him
+that he must cut down every one of the trees before nightfall.
+
+When he had gone away, the Prince went to the Master-Maid and told her
+what his task was.
+
+"You cannot do that with such an axe, but never mind, I can help you.
+Sleep here in peace and when you wake up you will see what you will
+see."
+
+So Prince Edgar trusted the Master-Maid and lay down and slept till
+late in the afternoon, when he woke up and looked, and there were the
+trees all felled and the Master-Maid was smiling by his side.
+
+"How did you do it?" he said.
+
+"That I may not say, but done it is, and that is all that you need
+care for."
+
+When the giant came home, the first thing he did was to go to the
+clump of trees and found, to his surprise, that they had all been
+felled.
+
+"Ah, you've spoken to my Master-Maid," he said once more.
+
+"Who is she?" said the Prince.
+
+"You know well enough," said the giant. "But for her you could not
+have cut down those trees with that glass axe."
+
+"I do not know what you mean," said the Prince. "But at any rate,
+there you have your trees cut down, what more do you want?"
+
+"Well, well," grumbled the giant, "we'll see to-morrow whether you can
+do what I tell you then," and would not say what his task should be
+next day.
+
+When the morning came, the giant pointed to the tallest tree in the
+forest near them, and said:
+
+"Do you see that birds' nest in the top of that tree? In it are six
+eggs; you must climb up there and get all those eggs for me before
+nightfall, and if one is broken woe betide you!"
+
+At that Prince Edgar did not feel so happy, for there were no branches
+to the tree till very near the top, and it was as smooth, as smooth as
+it could be, and he did not see how possibly he could reach the birds'
+nest. But when the giant had gone out for the day he went at once to
+the Master-Maid and told her of his new task.
+
+"That is the hardest of all," said the Master-Maid. "There is only one
+way to do the task. You must cut me up into small pieces and take out
+my bones, and out of the bones you must make a ladder, and with that
+ladder you can reach the top."
+
+"That I will never do," said the Prince. "You've been so good to me,
+shall I do you harm? Before that, I should suffer whatever punishment
+the giant will give me for not carrying out the task."
+
+"But all will be well," said the Master-Maid. "As soon as you have
+brought down the nest, all that you will have to do is to put the
+bones together and sprinkle on them the water from this flask, and
+then I shall be whole again just as before."
+
+After much persuasion the Prince agreed to do what the Master-Maid
+had told him, and made a ladder out of her bones and climbed up to the
+top of the tree and took the birds' nest with the six eggs in it, and
+then he put the bones together, but forgot to put one little bone in
+its proper place.
+
+So when he had sprinkled the water over the bones the Master-Maid
+stood up before him just as before, but the little finger of her left
+hand was not there. She cried and said:
+
+"Ah, why did you not do what I told you--put all my bones together in
+their place? You forgot my little finger; I shall never have one all
+the days of my life."
+
+When the giant came home, he asked the Prince:
+
+"Where is the birds' nest?"
+
+And the Prince brought it to him with the eggs all safe within it. And
+then the giant said:
+
+"Ah, you have spoken to my Master-Maid."
+
+"Whom do you mean by your Master-Maid?" said the Prince. "There are
+your eggs, what more do you want?"
+
+But the giant said: "Well, as the Master-Maid has helped you so far
+she can help you always. You shall marry her today and sleep in my own
+four-poster."
+
+The Prince was well content with that arrangement and went and sought
+the Master-Maid and told her what the giant had said.
+
+The Master-Maid wept and said: "You know not what he means. His
+four-poster rolls up and would crush us and we would be dead before
+the morning. Let me think, let me think."
+
+So the Master-Maid took an apple and divided it into six parts and put
+two at the foot of the bed and two at the door of the room and two at
+the foot of the stairs.
+
+When night came, the Master-Maid and her Prince went up into the room
+with the four-poster, but as soon as it was dark crept down the stairs
+and went out to the stable and chose two of the swiftest horses there
+and rode away as quickly as they could.
+
+The giant waited for some time after they had gone upstairs and then
+called out:
+
+"Are you asleep?"
+
+And the two apple shares near the bed called out:
+
+"Not yet, not yet!"
+
+So after waiting some time he called out again:
+
+"Are you asleep?"
+
+And the apple shares at the door called out:
+
+"Not yet, not yet!"
+
+And still a third time the giant called out:
+
+"Are you asleep?"
+
+And the apple shares on the stairs replied:
+
+"Not yet, not yet!"
+
+Then the giant knew that the voice was outside the bedroom, and rushed
+up to find Edgar and his bride, but found they were gone. He rushed to
+the stable and chose his great horse Dapplegrim and rode after Prince
+Edgar and the Master-Maid.
+
+They had gone on a good way in front; but after a time they heard the
+trampling of the hoofs of the great horse Dapplegrim, and the
+Master-Maid said to Prince Edgar:
+
+"That is the giant; he will soon overtake us if we do not do
+something." And she jumped off her horse and bade Prince Edgar do the
+same.
+
+Then the Master-Maid took three twigs and threw them behind her with
+magic spells; and they grew and they grew and they grew, till they
+became a huge thick forest. And the Master-Maid and Edgar jumped upon
+their horses again and rode away as fast as they could.
+
+But the giant, as soon as he came to the forest, had to take his axe
+from his side and hew his way through the thick trees, so that Edgar
+and the Master-Maid got far ahead. But soon they heard once more the
+trampling of Dapplegrim close behind them; and the Master-Maid took
+the glass axe that the giant had given Edgar on the second day, and
+threw it behind her with magic spells. And a huge glass mountain rose
+behind them, so that the giant had to stop and split his way through
+the glass mountain.
+
+Edgar and the Master-Maid rode on at full speed, but once again they
+heard Dapplegrim trampling behind them, and the Master-Maid took the
+flask of water from her side and cast it down back of her, and out of
+it gushed a huge stream.
+
+When the giant came up to the stream and tried to make Dapplegrim
+swim through it he would not; and then he lay down on the bank of the
+stream and commenced to drink up as much of it as he could. And he
+drank and he drank and he drank, till at last he swallowed so much
+that he burst; and that was the end of the giant.
+
+[Illustration: The Giant Tries to Drink the Stream]
+
+Meanwhile Edgar and the Master-Maid had ridden on fast and furious
+till they came near where the palace of the King, Edgar's father,
+could be seen in the far distance. And Edgar said:
+
+"Let me go on first and tell my father and mother all that you have
+done for me, and they will welcome you as their daughter."
+
+The Master-Maid shook her head sadly and said:
+
+"Do as you will, but beware lest any one kiss you before you see me
+again."
+
+"I want no kisses from any one but you," said Prince Edgar, and
+leaving her in a hut by the roadside he went on to greet the King and
+Queen.
+
+When he got to the palace gate everybody was astonished to see him, as
+they had all thought he had been destroyed by the giant. And when they
+took him to the Queen, his mother, she rushed to him and kissed him
+before he could say nay.
+
+No sooner had his mother kissed him than all memory of the Master-Maid
+disappeared from his mind. And when he told his mother and his father
+what he had done in the giant's castle and how he had escaped, he said
+nothing of the help given him by the Master-Maid.
+
+Soon afterwards the King and the Queen arranged for the marriage of
+Prince Edgar with a great Princess from a neighbouring country. And
+she was brought home with great pomp and ceremony to the King's
+palace. And one day after her marriage, when she was out, she passed
+by the hut in which the Master-Maid was dwelling.
+
+Now the Master-Maid had put on that day a beautiful dress of rich
+silk, and when the Prince's wife saw it she went to the Master-Maid
+and said:
+
+"I should like that dress. Will you not sell it to me?"
+
+"Yes," said the Master-Maid, "but at a price you are not likely to
+give."
+
+"What do you want for it?" said the Princess.
+
+"I want to spend one night in the room of your bridegroom, Prince
+Edgar."
+
+At first the Princess would not think of such a thing; but after
+thinking the matter over she thought of a plan, and said:
+
+"Well, you shall have your wish," and took away with her the silken
+dress.
+
+But at night, when the Master-Maid came to the palace and claimed her
+promise, the Princess put a sleep-giving drug in Edgar's cup.
+
+When the Master-Maid came into Edgar's room she bent over his bed and
+cried:
+
+ "I cleaned the byre for thee,
+ I swung the axe for thee,
+ And now thou'lt not speak to me."
+
+But still Edgar slept on, and in the morning the Master-Maid had to
+leave without speaking to him.
+
+Next day, when the Princess went out to see what the Master-Maid had
+been doing, she found her dressed in a rich silver dress, and said to
+her:
+
+"Will you sell that dress to me?"
+
+And the Master-Maid said, "Yes, at a price."
+
+Then the Princess said, "What price?"
+
+"One night in Edgar's room," replied the Master-Maid.
+
+The Princess knew what had happened the night before, so she agreed to
+let the Master-Maid pass still another night with her bridegroom. But
+all happened as before; and when the Master-Maid came into the room
+she bent over Edgar, lying upon the bed, and called out:
+
+ "I gave my bones for thee,
+ I shared the apples for thee,
+ And yet thou'lt not speak to me";
+
+and had to leave him as before, without his waking up.
+
+But this time Prince Edgar had heard something of what she said in his
+sleep. And when he woke up he asked his chamberlain what had happened
+during the night. And he told the Prince that for two nights running a
+maiden had been in his room and sung to him, but he had not answered.
+
+Next day the Princess sought out the Master-Maid as before. And this
+time she was dressed in a dress of shining gold; and for that the
+Princess agreed to let her spend one more night in the Prince's room.
+
+But this time the Prince, guessing what had happened, threw away the
+wine-cup, in which the Princess had placed the sleeping draught, and
+lay awake on his bed when the Master-Maid came in. She bent over him
+and cried:
+
+ "I grew the forest for thee,
+ I made the glass mount for thee,
+ For thee a stream flowed from my magic flask,
+ And yet thou'lt not wake and speak to me."
+
+But this time Prince Edgar rose up in bed and recognized the
+Master-Maid, and called in his father and his mother and told them all
+that had happened, which had now come back to him.
+
+So the Princess was sent back to her home, and Edgar married the
+Master-Maid and lived happy ever afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Visitor]
+
+A VISITOR FROM PARADISE
+
+
+There was once a woman, good but simple, who had been twice married.
+One day when her husband was in the field--of course that was her
+second husband, you know--a weary tramp came trudging by her door and
+asked for a drink of water. When she gave it to him, being rather a
+gossip, she asked where he came from.
+
+"From Paris," said the man.
+
+The woman was a little bit deaf, and thought the man said from
+Paradise.
+
+"From Paradise! Did you meet there my poor dear husband, Lord rest his
+soul?"
+
+"What was his name?" asked the man.
+
+"Why, John Goody, of course," said the woman. "Did you know him in
+Paradise?"
+
+"What, John Goody!" said the man. "Him and me was as thick as
+thieves."
+
+"Does he want for anything?" said the woman. "I suppose up in Paradise
+you get all you want."
+
+"All we want! Why, look at me," said the man pointing to his rags and
+tatters. "They treat some of us right shabby up there."
+
+"Dear me, that's bad. Are you likely to go back?"
+
+"Go back to Paradise, marm; I should say! We have to be in every night
+at ten."
+
+"Well, perhaps you wouldn't mind taking back some things for my poor
+old John," said the woman.
+
+"In course, marm, delighted to help my old chum John."
+
+So the woman went indoors and got a big pile of clothes and a long
+pipe and three bottles of beer, and a beer jug, and gave them to the
+man.
+
+"But," he said, "please marm, I can't carry all these by my own self.
+Ain't you got a horse or a donkey that I can take along with me to
+carry them? I'll bring them back to-morrow."
+
+Then the woman said, "There's our old Dobbin in the stable; I can't
+lend you mare Juniper cos my husband's ploughing with her just now."
+
+"Ah, well, Dobbin'll do as its only till to-morrow."
+
+So the woman got out Dobbin and saddled him, and the man took the
+clothes and the beer and the pipe and rode off with them.
+
+Shortly afterwards her husband came home and said,
+
+"What's become of Dobbin? He's not in the stable."
+
+So his wife told him all that had happened. And he said,
+
+"I don't like that. How do we know that he is going to Paradise? And
+how do we know that he'll bring Dobbin back to-morrow? I'll saddle
+Juniper and get the things back. Which way did he go?"
+
+So he saddled Juniper and rode after the man, who saw him coming afar
+off and guessed what had happened. So he got off from Dobbin and drove
+him into a clump of trees near the roadside, and then went and laid
+down on his back and looked up to the sky.
+
+When the farmer came up to him he got down from Juniper and said,
+"What are you doing there?"
+
+"Oh, such a funny thing," said the man; "a fellow came along here on a
+horse with some clothes and things, and when he got to the top of the
+hill here he simply gave a shout and the horse went right up into the
+sky; and I was watching him when you came up."
+
+"Oh, it's all right then," said the farmer. "He's gone to Paradise,
+sure enough," and went back to his wife.
+
+Next day they waited, and they waited for the man to bring back
+Dobbin; but he didn't come that day nor the next day, nor the next. So
+the farmer said to his wife,
+
+"My dear, we've been done. But I'll find that man if I have to trudge
+through the whole kingdom. And you must come with me, as you know
+him."
+
+"But what shall we do with the house?" said the wife. "You know there
+have been robbers around here, and while we are away they'll come and
+take my best chiny."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," said the farmer. "He who minds the door minds
+the house. So we'll take the door with us and then they can't get in."
+
+So he took the door off its hinges and put it on his back and they
+went along to find the man from Paradise. So they went along, and they
+went along, and they went along till night came, and they didn't know
+what to do for shelter. So the man said,
+
+"That's a comfortable tree there; let us roost in the branches like
+the birds." So they took the door up with them and laid down to sleep
+on it as comfortable, as comfortable can be.
+
+[Illustration: Up the Tree]
+
+Now it happened that a band of robbers had just broken into a castle
+near by and taken out a great lot of plunder; and they came under the
+very tree to divide it. And when they began to settle how much each
+should have they began to quarrel and woke up the farmer and his wife.
+They were so frightened when they heard the robbers underneath them
+that they tried to get up farther into the tree, and in doing so let
+the door fall down right on the robbers' heads.
+
+"The heavens are falling," cried the robbers, who were so frightened
+that they all rushed away. And the farmer and his wife came down from
+the tree and collected all the booty and went home and lived happy
+ever afterwards.
+
+It was and it was not.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Snake]
+
+INSIDE AGAIN
+
+
+A man was walking through the forest one day when he saw a funny black
+thing like a whip wriggling about under a big stone. He was curious to
+know what it all meant. So he lifted up the stone and found there a
+huge black snake.
+
+"That's well," said the snake. "I have been trying to get out for two
+days, and, Oh, how hungry I am. I must have something to eat, and
+there is nobody around, so I must eat you."
+
+"But that wouldn't be fair," said the man with a trembling voice. "But
+for me you would never have come out from under the stone."
+
+"I do not care for that," said the snake. "Self-preservation is the
+first law of life; you ask anybody if that isn't so."
+
+"Any one will tell you," said the man, "that gratitude is a person's
+first duty, and surely you owe me thanks for saving your life."
+
+"But you haven't saved my life, if I am to die of hunger," said the
+snake.
+
+"Oh yes, I have," said the man; "all you have to do is to wait till
+you find something to eat."
+
+"Meanwhile I shall die, and what's the use of being saved!"
+
+So they disputed and they disputed whether the case was to be decided
+by the claims of gratitude or the rights of self-preservation, till
+they did not know what to do.
+
+"I tell you what I'll do," said the snake, "I'll let the first
+passer-by decide which is right."
+
+"But I can't let my life depend upon the word of the first comer."
+
+"Well, we'll ask the first two that pass by."
+
+"Perhaps they won't agree," said the man; "what are we to do then? We
+shall be as badly off as we are now."
+
+"Ah, well," said the snake, "let it be the first three. In all law
+courts it takes three judges to make a session. We'll follow the
+majority of votes."
+
+So they waited till at last there came along an old, old horse. And
+they put the case to him, whether gratitude should ward off death.
+
+"I don't see why it should," said the horse. "Here have I been slaving
+for my master for the last fifteen years, till I am thoroughly worn
+out, and only this morning I heard him say, 'Roger'--that's my
+name--'is no use to me any longer; I shall have to send him to the
+knacker's and get a few pence for his hide and his hoofs.' There's
+gratitude for you."
+
+So the horse's vote was in favour of the snake. And they waited till
+at last an old hound passed by limping on three legs, half blind with
+scarcely any teeth. So they put the case to him.
+
+"Look at me," said he; "I have slaved for my master for ten years, and
+this very day he has kicked me out of his house because I am no use to
+him any longer, and he grudged me a few bones to eat. So far as I can
+see nobody acts from gratitude."
+
+"Well," said the snake, "there's two votes for me. What's the use of
+waiting for the third? he's sure to decide in my favour, and if he
+doesn't it's two to one. Come here and I'll eat you!"
+
+"No, no," said the man, "a bargain's a bargain; perhaps the third
+judge will be able to convince the other two and my life will be
+saved."
+
+So they waited and they waited, till at last a fox came trotting
+along; and they stopped him and explained to him both sides of the
+case. He sat up and scratched his left ear with his hind paw, and
+after a while he beckons the man to come near him. And when he did so
+the fox whispered,
+
+"What will you give me if I get you out of this?"
+
+The man whispered back, "A pair of fat chickens."
+
+"Well," said the fox, "if I am to decide this case I must clearly
+understand the situation. Let me see! If I comprehend aright, the man
+was lying under the stone and the snake----"
+
+"No, no," cried out the horse and the hound and the snake. "It was the
+other way."
+
+"Ah, ha, I see! The stone was rolling down and the man sat on it, and
+then----"
+
+"Oh, how stupid you are," they all cried; "it wasn't that way at all."
+
+"Dear me, you are quite right. I am very stupid, but, really, you
+haven't explained the case quite clearly to me."
+
+"I'll show you," said the snake, impatient from his long hunger; and
+he twisted himself again under the stone and wriggled his tail till at
+last the stone settled down upon him and he couldn't move out. "That's
+the way it was."
+
+"And that's the way it will be," said the fox, and, taking the man's
+arm, he walked off, followed by the horse and the hound. "And now for
+my chickens."
+
+"I'll go and get them for you," said the man, and went up to his
+house, which was near, and told his wife all about it.
+
+"But," she said, "why waste a pair of chickens on a foxy old fox! I
+know what I'll do."
+
+So she went into the back yard and unloosed the dog and put it into a
+meal-bag and gave it to the man, who took it down and gave it to the
+fox, who trotted off with it to his den.
+
+But when he opened the bag out sprung the dog and gobbled him all up.
+
+There's gratitude for you.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Three Ravens]
+
+JOHN THE TRUE
+
+
+There was once a king who had long been unmarried. Now one day, going
+through his palace, he came to a room that he had never opened before.
+So he sent for the key and entered it, and opposite the door was the
+picture of a most beautiful princess with skin white as snow and
+cheeks red as blood and hair black as ebony. No sooner had he seen
+this picture than he fell in love with it and asked who she was.
+
+His chamberlain said, "That is the Princess of the Golden Horde, with
+which your Majesty's kingdom has been at war these last twenty years.
+Only three years ago, when your Majesty's father was alive, there was
+some talk of peace and of betrothing you to her, and that was when her
+portrait was sent here. But now the two kingdoms are at war and it
+does not seem that peace will ever come."
+
+But though there was no hope of marrying her the King could not help
+but think of the Princess of the Golden Horde, and thought and thought
+till he became quite pale and sick with love for her. Now he had a
+faithful servant, the son of his own nurse, and thus his
+foster-brother, and he was so devoted to the King that everybody
+called him John the True.
+
+When John the True saw his foster-brother pining away he went to him
+and said:
+
+"What ails thee, Oh sire?" for he alone had the right of calling the
+King "thou."
+
+Then said the King to John the True:
+
+"Come and I will show thee, John." And he took him to the closed
+chamber and showed him the portrait and told him how he felt towards
+the Princess of the Golden Horde.
+
+"Be of good cheer," said John the True; "I will go and fetch her for
+thee."
+
+"How can that be?" said the King; "we are at war with the Golden
+Horde, and they would never give her to be my bride."
+
+"Leave that to me," said John the True; "give me only a ship full of
+merchandise and put in it a complete set of furniture made all of
+gold, and see if I do not bring the Princess back to thee."
+
+So the King did all that John the True demanded. And he sailed away
+with the ship and its merchandise to the country of the Golden Horde.
+And when he came there to the chief port he did not declare from what
+country he was but sent up, as tribute to the King of the Golden
+Horde, a beautiful chair all made of gold.
+
+Now when the King saw this he became curious about this merchant and
+his wares, and came down with his Queen and the Princess to view the
+rarities. And when he saw the set of furniture all made of gold he
+asked John the True what its price was.
+
+But John said it was not for sale, but that he kept it to make gifts
+of tribute to the kings whose realm he was visiting.
+
+But the Princess had set her heart upon one dressing-table all of
+gold, with crystal mirrors and lovely fittings, and asked John if he
+could not sell it to her.
+
+But John said, "No, that is kept for a special purpose, which I am not
+allowed to tell."
+
+This aroused the curiosity of the Princess, and later on towards the
+evening she came down with only one maid to see if she could not
+persuade John to let her have the dressing-table.
+
+When she came on board John went to the captain and told him to set
+sail as soon as the Princess went down into the cabin. And when she
+came there he began telling her a long story, how that his master the
+King had sent him to visit all the kingdoms of the earth, and that
+this dressing-table was intended for the most beautiful princess whom
+he should come across in his travels.
+
+And then the Princess wanted to know whether he would have to finish
+his travels before giving the table, and what the King expected from
+the Princess.
+
+John told her that everything was left to him and that, when he found
+a princess with skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, and
+hair as black as ebony, he was to present the table to her.
+
+Then the Princess looked in the mirror and said:
+
+"Have I not skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, and
+hair as black as ebony? Then give me the table."
+
+But just then she began to feel the motion of the ship and knew that
+it was sailing away, and commenced to shriek and cry. But John told
+her all that had happened, and how that he had come only for her, and
+that his foster-brother the King was dying for love of her, and could
+not come himself because the two countries were at war. So at last the
+Princess became content, and they sailed on and on towards the country
+of John the True.
+
+As they were nearing land John was sitting in the prow, and the
+Princess was reclining on a couch on deck, and three black ravens were
+flying about the mast of the vessel. Now John, being the son of a
+huntsman, knew the language of birds; and he listened to what they
+said, and this was it:
+
+"Caw, caw!" said the first raven. "There sits the Princess of the
+Golden Horde, thinking that she will marry John's master the King. But
+I know something which will prevent that."
+
+"What is that?" asked the second raven.
+
+"Why," said the first, "when the Princess lands and the King meets her
+they will bring out to him a bay horse richly caparisoned, with a
+pillion for the Princess. And if the King takes her with him on the
+horse he will run away with them and dash them both to pieces. Caw,
+caw!"
+
+"But is there no remedy for that?" said the third raven.
+
+"Only if some one cuts off the head of the horse, or tells the King;
+but woe unto him if he does that, for as soon as he has told he will
+become marble up to his knees. Caw, caw!"
+
+"Even if he escapes that," said the second raven, "the King would
+never marry the Princess, for at the wedding feast wine will be
+presented to him, in a glass goblet, and at the first drop of it he
+drinks he will fall down dead. Caw, caw!"
+
+"But is there nothing to remedy that?" asked the first raven.
+
+"Only if some one dashes the glass from his hand, or tells of the
+danger; but if he tells he will become marble up to his waist. Caw,
+caw!"
+
+"Caw, caw!" said the third raven. "There is still another danger. On
+the wedding night a dreadful dragon will creep into the bridal chamber
+and kill both King and Princess. And there is no remedy against that
+unless some one drives off the dragon or tells of the danger. But if
+he tells he will become marble from head to foot. Caw, caw!"
+
+When John the True heard all this he made up his mind he would save
+his brother the King without telling him of the dangers that
+threatened him. And when they neared the shore he caused a trumpet to
+be sounded three times, which was the signal agreed upon between
+himself and the King, that he had succeeded in bringing back the
+Princess of the Golden Horde.
+
+So the King came quickly down to the ship in all his glory and
+received with joy the Princess, and thanked John the True for his
+faithful service.
+
+When it came time for the King to lead the Princess to his palace,
+some one brought forth a noble bay horse richly caparisoned and with a
+pillion at the back of the saddle for the Princess to ride on. And
+just as the King gave her his hand and was about to mount the horse,
+John the True drew his sword and cut off the head of the bay horse.
+
+"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John the True has drawn his
+sword in the King's presence."
+
+But the King said, "What John the True does is done for me. Let a
+coach be brought and we will return to the palace."
+
+So the King and the Princess and John the True went to the palace, and
+preparations were made for a grand wedding. And on the day of the
+wedding there was a great banquet held, and at the beginning a glass
+of wine was brought forth and presented to the King, and just as he
+was lifting it to his lips John the True, who stood behind the King's
+throne, rushed forward and dashed the goblet to the ground.
+
+"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John the True is mad."
+
+"Nay, nay," said the King; "what John the True does is for our good.
+Wherefore did'st thou do that, John?"
+
+"That I must not say," said John the True.
+
+"Well, well," said the King; "doubtless thou hadst thy reasons; let
+the banquet proceed."
+
+On the night of the wedding John the True took his place with drawn
+sword before the bridal chamber, and watched and watched and watched.
+Towards midnight he heard a rustling in the bridal chamber and,
+rushing in, saw a winged dragon coming through the window towards the
+King and Princess. He dashed towards it and wounded it with his sword,
+so that it flew out of the window, dropping blood on the way.
+
+But the noise that John the True had made awakened the King and Queen,
+and they saw him before them with sword dripping with blood. And not
+recognizing him at first, the King called out for his guard, who came
+in quickly and seized John the True.
+
+When the King saw who it was he asked John if he had any explanation
+of his conduct, and John said:
+
+"That I may not say."
+
+"This is more than I can bear," said the King. "Perhaps love has
+turned thy brain."
+
+And turning to the captain of his guard, the King said, "Let him be
+executed in the morning in our presence."
+
+When the morning came everything was ready for John's execution, when
+he stood forth and said to the King:
+
+"If your Majesty wills, I will explain my conduct."
+
+"So be it," said the King; "I trust thou wilt prove that thou art
+indeed John the True."
+
+And John the True told the King and the Queen and the courtiers all
+that had occurred and what he had heard from the ravens, and how he
+had saved the life of the King and the Queen by wounding the dragon on
+the preceding night. But as he told why he killed the horse his legs
+became marble up to the knees. And when he explained why he had dashed
+the poisoned wine-cup from the King's hand, the marble came up to his
+waist. And when he explained how he had turned the dragon from the
+bridal chamber, his whole body became marble from head to foot.
+
+Then the King knew what a faithful servant he had in John the True;
+and he bade his men to place the marble body on a golden stand on
+which was written, "This is John the True who gave his life for his
+King." And whenever the soldiers and the courtiers passed it they gave
+it a salute.
+
+Now after a time there came to the Queen two little twin boys, whom
+she loved better than all the world. And they grew and they grew, till
+they learned to speak. And every time they passed the statue of John
+the True they would raise their little hands and give it a salute, for
+the Queen, their mother, had told them what John the True had done for
+their father and her.
+
+But one night the Queen dreamed that a voice from Heaven said to her,
+"John the True can live again if the two Princes be slain for his sake
+and his body smeared with their blood."
+
+The Queen told this dream to the King, and they were terrified at it,
+but thought it only a dream. But twice again the same dream came to
+the Queen on the following two nights; and then she said to her
+husband the King,
+
+"John the True gave his life for us; I feel we ought to give our
+children for him."
+
+The King at last agreed to the terrible sacrifice, and the heads of
+the two Princes were cut off, and the statue of John smeared with
+their blood, when it came to life and John the True lived again.
+
+But when he learned how he had been brought to life again, he asked
+to have the bodies of the Princes brought to his chamber, and, going
+to the bridal chamber, scraped from the floor some of the dragon's
+blood that had fallen there, and went back into his chamber and closed
+the door.
+
+Shortly after, the King and the Queen heard the voices of their sons
+calling out for them; and when the door was opened there they were
+alive again.
+
+So the King and the Queen and the Princes lived together in all joy,
+with their faithful servant John the True.
+
+[Illustration: The Wounded Dragon]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Witch]
+
+JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE
+
+
+There was once a poor farmer who had two children named Johnnie and
+Grizzle. Now things grew worse and worse for the farmer till he could
+scarcely earn enough to eat and drink. All his crops went to pay rent
+and taxes. So one night he said to his wife,
+
+"Betty, my dear, I really do not know what to do; there is scarcely
+anything in the house to eat, and in a few days we shall all be
+starving. What I think of doing is to take the poor lad and lassie
+into the forest and leave them there; if somebody finds them they will
+surely keep them alive, and if nobody finds them they might as well
+die there as here; I cannot see any other way; it is their lives or
+ours; and if we die what can become of them?"
+
+"No, no, father," said the farmer's wife; "wait but a few days and
+perhaps something will turn up."
+
+"We have waited and have waited and things are getting worse every
+day; if we wait much longer we shall all be dead. No, I am determined
+on it; to-morrow the children to the forest."
+
+Now it happened that Johnnie was awake in the next room and heard his
+father and his mother talking. He said nothing but thought and thought
+and thought; and early next morning he went out and picked a large
+number of bright-coloured pebbles and put them in his pocket. After
+breakfast, which consisted of bread and water, the farmer said to
+Johnnie and Grizzle,
+
+"Come, my dears, I am going to take you for a walk," and with that he
+went with them into the forest near-by.
+
+Johnnie said nothing, but dropped one of his pebbles at every turning,
+which would show him the way back. When they got far into the forest
+the farmer said to the children,
+
+"My dears, I have to go and get something. Stay here and don't go
+away, and I'll soon come back. Give me a kiss, children," and with
+that he hurried away and went back home by another road.
+
+After a time Grizzle began to cry and said,
+
+"Where's father? Where's father? We can't get home. We can't get
+home."
+
+But Johnnie said, "Never mind, Grizzle, I can take you home; you just
+follow me."
+
+So Johnnie looked out for the pebbles he had dropped, and found them
+at each turn of the road, and a little after midday got home and asked
+their mother for their dinner.
+
+"There's nothing in the house, children, but you can go and get some
+water from the well and, please God, we'll have bread in the morning."
+
+When the farmer came home he was astonished to find that the children
+had found their way home, and could not imagine how they had done so.
+But at night he said to his wife,
+
+"Betty, my dear, I do not know how the children came home; but that
+does not make any difference; I cannot bear to see them starve before
+my eyes, better that they should starve in the forest. I will take
+them there again to-morrow."
+
+Johnnie heard all this and crept downstairs and put some more pebbles
+into his pocket; and though the farmer took them this time further
+into the forest the same thing occurred as the day before. But this
+time Grizzle said to her mother and father,
+
+"Johnnie did such a funny thing; whenever we turned a new road he
+dropped pebbles. Wasn't that funny? And when we came back he looked
+for the pebbles, and there they were; they had not moved."
+
+Then the farmer knew how he had been done, and as evening came on he
+locked all the doors so that Johnnie could not get out to get any
+pebbles. In the morning he gave them a hunk of bread as before for
+their breakfast and told them he was going to take them into the nice
+forest again. Grizzle ate her bread, but Johnnie put his into his
+pocket, and when they got inside the forest at every turning he
+dropped a few crumbs of his bread. When his father left them he tried
+to trace his way back by means of these crumbs. But, alas, and
+alackaday! The little birds had seen the crumbs and eaten them all up,
+and when Johnnie went to search for them they had all disappeared.
+
+So they wandered and they wandered, more and more hungry all the time,
+till they came to a glade in which there was a funny little house; and
+what do you think it was made of? The door was made of butter-scotch,
+the windows of sugar candy, the bricks were all chocolate creams, the
+pillars of lollypops, and the roof of gingerbread.
+
+No sooner had the children seen this funny little house than they
+rushed up to it and commenced to pick pieces off the door, and take
+out some of the bricks, while Johnnie climbed on Grizzle's back, and
+tore off some of the roof (what was that made of?). Just as they were
+eating all this the door opened and a little old woman, with red eyes,
+came out and said,
+
+"Naughty, naughty children to break up my house like that. Why didn't
+you knock at the door and ask to have something, and I would gladly
+give it to you?"
+
+"Please ma'am," said Johnnie, "I will ask for something; I am so, so
+hungry, or else I wouldn't have hurt your pretty roof."
+
+"Come inside my house," said the old woman, and let them come into her
+parlour. And that was made all of candies, the chairs and table of
+maple-sugar, and the couch of cocoanut. But as soon as the old woman
+got them inside her door she seized hold of Johnnie and took him
+through the kitchen and put him in a dark cubby-hole, and left him
+there with the door locked.
+
+Now this old woman was a witch, who looked out for little children,
+whom she fattened up and ate. So she went back to Grizzle, and said,
+
+"You shall be my little servant and do my work for me, and, as for
+that brother of yours, he'll make a fine meal when he's fattened up."
+
+So this witch kept Johnnie and Grizzle with her, making Grizzle do all
+the housework, and every morning she went to the cubby-hole in which
+she kept Johnnie and gave him a good breakfast, and later in the day a
+good dinner, and at night a good supper; but after she gave him his
+supper she would say to him,
+
+"Put out your forefinger," and when he put it out the old witch, who
+was nearly blind, felt it and muttered,
+
+"Not fat enough yet!"
+
+After a while Johnnie felt he was getting real fat and was afraid the
+witch would eat him up. So he searched about till he found a stick
+about the size of his finger, and when the old witch asked him to put
+out his finger he put out the stick, and she said,
+
+"Goodness gracious me, the boy is as thin as a lath! I must feed him
+up more."
+
+So she gave him more and more food, and every day he put out the stick
+till at last one day he got careless, and when she took the stick it
+fell out of his hand, and she felt what it was. So she flew into a
+terrible rage and called out,
+
+"Grizzle, Grizzle, make the oven hot. This lad is fat enough for
+Christmas."
+
+Poor Grizzle did not know what to do, but she had to obey the witch.
+So she piled the wood on under the oven and set it alight. And after a
+while the old witch said to her,
+
+"Grizzle, Grizzle, is the oven hot?"
+
+And Grizzle said, "I don't know, mum."
+
+And when the witch asked her again whether it was hot enough, Grizzle
+said,
+
+"I do not know how hot an oven ought to be."
+
+"Get away, get away," said the old witch; "I know, let me see." And
+she poked her old head into the oven. Then Grizzle pushed her right
+into the oven and closed the door and rushed out into the back yard
+and let Johnnie out of the cubby-hole.
+
+Then Johnnie and Grizzle ran away towards the setting sun where they
+knew their own house was, till at last they came to a broad stream too
+deep for them to wade. But just at that moment they looked back, and
+what do you think they saw? The old witch, by some means or other, had
+got out of the oven and was rushing after them. What were they to do?
+What were they to do?
+
+Suddenly Grizzle saw a fine big duck swimming towards them, and she
+called out:
+
+ "Duck, duck, come to me,
+ Johnnie and Grizzle depend upon thee;
+ Take Johnnie and Grizzle on thy back,
+ Or else they'll be eaten--"
+
+And the duck said,
+
+ "Quack! Quack!"
+
+Then the duck came up to the bank, and Johnnie and Grizzle went into
+the water and, by resting their hands on the duck's back, swam across
+the stream just as the old witch came up.
+
+At first she tried to make the duck come over and carry her, but the
+duck said, "Quack! Quack!" and shook its head.
+
+Then she lay down and commenced swallowing up the stream, so that it
+should run dry and she could get across. She drank, and she drank, and
+she drank, and she drank, till she drank so much that she burst!
+
+So Johnnie and Grizzle ran back home, and when they got there they
+found that their father the farmer had earned a lot of money and had
+been searching and searching for them over the forest, and was mighty
+glad to get back Johnnie and Grizzle again.
+
+[Illustration: The Duck]
+
+
+
+
+THE CLEVER LASS
+
+
+Now there was once a farmer who had but one daughter of whom he was
+very proud because she was so clever. So whenever he was in any
+difficulty he would go to her and ask her what he should do. It
+happened that he had a dispute with one of his neighbours, and the
+matter came before the King, and he, after hearing from both of them,
+did not know how to decide and said:
+
+"You both seem to be right and you both seem to be wrong, and I do not
+know how to decide; so I will leave it to yourselves in this way:
+whichever of you can answer best the three questions I am about to ask
+shall win this trial. What is the most beautiful thing? What is the
+strongest thing? and, What is the richest thing? Now go home and think
+over your answers and bring them to me to-morrow morning."
+
+So the farmer went home and told his daughter what had happened, and
+she told him what to answer next day.
+
+So when the matter came up for trial before the King he asked first
+the farmer's neighbour,
+
+"What is the most beautiful thing?"
+
+And he answered, "My wife."
+
+Then he asked him, "What is the strongest thing?"
+
+"My ox."
+
+"And what is the richest?"
+
+And he answered, "Myself."
+
+Then he turned to the farmer and asked him,
+
+"What is the most beautiful thing?"
+
+And the farmer answered, "Spring."
+
+Then he asked him, "What is the strongest?"
+
+"The earth."
+
+Then he asked, "What is the richest thing?"
+
+He answered, "The harvest."
+
+Then the King decided that the farmer had answered best, and gave
+judgment in his favour. But he had noticed that the farmer had
+hesitated in his answers and seemed to be trying to remember things.
+So he called him up to him and said,
+
+"I fancy those arrows did not come from your quiver. Who told you how
+to answer so cleverly?"
+
+Then the farmer said, "Please your Majesty, it was my daughter who is
+the cleverest girl in all the world."
+
+"Is that so?" said the King. "I should like to test that."
+
+Shortly afterwards the King sent one of his servants to the farmer's
+daughter with a round cake and thirty small biscuits and a roast
+capon, and told him to ask her whether the moon was full, and what
+day of the month it was, and whether the rooster had crowed in the
+night. On the way the servant ate half the cake and half of the
+biscuits and hid the capon away for his supper. And when he had
+delivered the rest to the Clever Girl and told his message she gave
+this reply to be brought back to the King:
+
+"It is only half-moon and the 15th of the month and the rooster has
+flown away to the mill; but spare the pheasant for the sake of the
+partridge."
+
+And when the servant had brought back this message to the King, he
+cried out,
+
+"You have eaten half the cake and fifteen of the biscuits and didn't
+hand over the capon at all."
+
+Then the servant confessed that this was all true, and the King said,
+
+"I would have punished you severely but that this Clever Girl begs me
+to forgive the pheasant, by which she meant you, for the sake of the
+partridge, by which she meant herself. So you may go unpunished."
+
+The King was so delighted with the cleverness of the girl that he
+determined to marry her. But, wishing to test her once more before
+doing so, he sent her a message that she should come to him clothed,
+yet unclothed, neither walking, nor driving, nor riding, neither in
+shadow nor in sun, and with a gift which is no gift.
+
+When the farmer's daughter received this message she went near the
+King's palace, and having undressed herself wrapped herself up in her
+long hair, and then had herself placed in a net which was attached to
+the tail of a horse. With one hand she held a sieve over her head to
+shield herself from the sun; and in the other she held a platter
+covered with another platter.
+
+Thus she came to the King neither clothed nor unclothed, neither
+walking, nor riding, nor driving, neither in sun nor in shadow.
+
+Now when she was released from the net and a mantle had been placed
+over her she handed the platter to the King, who took the top platter
+off, whereupon a little bird that had been between the two platters
+flew away. This was the gift that was no gift.
+
+The King was so delighted at the way in which the farmer's daughter
+had solved the riddle that he immediately married her and made her his
+Queen. And they lived very happily together though no children came to
+them. The King depended upon her for advice in all his affairs and
+would often have her seated by him when he was giving judgment in law
+matters.
+
+Now it happened that one day at the end of all the other cases there
+came two peasants, each of whom claimed a foal that had been born in a
+stable where they had both left their carts, one with a horse and the
+other with a mare. The King was tired with the day's pleadings, and
+without thinking and without consulting his Queen who sat by his
+side, he said,
+
+"Let the first man have it," who happened to be the peasant whose cart
+was drawn by the horse.
+
+Now the Queen was vexed that her husband should have decided so
+unjustly, and when the court was over she went to the other peasant
+and told him how he could convince the King that he had made a rash
+judgment. So the next day he took a stool outside the King's window
+and commenced fishing with a fishing-rod in the road.
+
+The King looking out of his window saw this and began to laugh and
+called out to the man,
+
+"You won't find many fish on a dry road," to which the peasant
+answered,
+
+"As many as foals that come from a horse."
+
+Then the King remembered his judgment of yesterday and, calling the
+men before him, decided that the foal should belong to the man who had
+the mare and who had fished in front of his windows. But he said to
+him as he dismissed them,
+
+"That arrow never came from your quiver."
+
+Then he went to his Queen in a towering rage and said to her,
+
+"How dare you interfere in my judgments?"
+
+And she said, "I did not like my dear husband to do what was unjust."
+But the King said,
+
+"Then you ought to have spoken to me, not shamed me before my people.
+That is too much. You shall go back to your father who is so proud of
+you. And the only favour I can grant you will be that you can take
+with you from the palace whatever you love best."
+
+"Your Majesty's wish shall be my law," said the Queen, "but let us at
+least not part in anger. Let me have my last dinner as Queen in your
+company."
+
+When they dined together the Queen put a sleeping potion in the King's
+cup, and when he fell asleep she directed the servants to put him in
+the carriage that was waiting to take her home, and carried him into
+her bed. When he woke up next morning he asked,
+
+"Where am I, and why are you still with me?"
+
+Then the Queen said, "You allowed me to take with me that which I
+loved best in the palace, and so I took you."
+
+Then the King recognized the love his Queen had for him, and brought
+her back to his palace, and they lived together there forever
+afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+THUMBKIN
+
+
+A woman was once stringing beans in her kitchen, and she thought to
+herself:
+
+"Oh, why have I not got a little baby boy; if I had only one as big as
+one of these beans or as big as my thumb I should be content. How I
+would love it, and dress it, and talk to it."
+
+As she was speaking thus to herself and finishing off the beans,
+suddenly she thought they all turned into little baby boys, jumping
+and writhing about. She was so startled and afraid that she shook out
+her apron, in which they all lay, into a big bowl of water with which
+she was going to wash the beans. And then she hid her head in her
+apron so as not to see what happened; and after a while she looked out
+from under her apron and looked at the bowl, and there were all the
+little boys floating and drowned, except one little boy at the top.
+And she took pity on him and drew him out of the bowl; then she showed
+him to her husband when he came home.
+
+"We have always wanted a boy," she said to him, "even if it were not
+bigger than our thumbs, and here we have him."
+
+So they took him and dressed him up in a little doll's dress and made
+much of him; and he learnt to talk, but he never grew any bigger than
+their thumbs; and so they called him Thumbkin.
+
+One day the man had to go down into the field, and he said to his
+wife:
+
+"My dear, I am going to get ready the horse and cart, and then I am
+going down to the field to reap, and just at eleven o'clock I want you
+to drive the cart down for me."
+
+"Isn't that just like a man?" said his wife. "I suppose you'll want
+your dinner at twelve, and how do you expect me to get it ready if I
+have to drive your horse and cart down to the field and then have to
+trudge back on my ten toes and get your dinner ready? What do you
+think I am made of?"
+
+"Well, it has to be done," said the man, "even if dinner has to be
+late."
+
+So they commenced quarrelling, till Thumbkin called out:
+
+"Leave it to me, Father; leave it to me."
+
+"Why, what can you do?" asked the man.
+
+"Well," said Thumbkin, "if mother will only put me in Dobbin's ear, I
+can guide him down to the field as well as she could."
+
+At first they laughed, but then they thought they would try. So the
+man went off to the field, and at eleven o'clock the woman put
+Thumbkin into the horse's right ear; and he immediately called out,
+"Gee!"
+
+And the horse began to move. And as it went on towards the field
+Thumbkin kept calling out:
+
+"Right! Left! Left! Right!" and so on till they got near the field.
+
+Now it happened that two men were coming that way, and they saw a
+horse and cart coming towards them, with nobody on it, and yet the
+horse was picking his way and turning the corners just as if somebody
+was guiding him. So they followed the horse and cart till they got to
+the field, when they saw the man take Thumbkin out of the horse's ear
+and stroke him and thank him. They looked at one another and said:
+
+"That lad is a wonder; if we could exhibit him we would make our
+fortunes."
+
+So the men went up to the man and said:
+
+"Will you sell that lad?"
+
+But the man said:
+
+"No, not for a fortune; he's the light of our life."
+
+But Thumbkin, who was seated on the man's shoulder, whispered to him:
+
+"Sell me and I'll soon get back."
+
+So the man after a time agreed to sell Thumbkin for a great deal of
+money, and the men took him away with them.
+
+"How shall we carry him?" said they.
+
+But Thumbkin called out:
+
+"Put me on the rim of your hat and I shall be able to see the
+country."
+
+And that is what they did.
+
+After a time as it got dusk the men sat down by the wayside to eat
+their supper. And the man took off his hat and put it on the ground,
+when Thumbkin jumped off and hid himself in the crevice of a tree.
+
+When they had finished their supper the men looked about to find
+Thumbkin, but he was not there. And after a while they had to give up
+the search and go away without him.
+
+When they had gone three robbers came and sat down near the tree where
+Thumbkin was and began to speak of their plans to rob the Squire's
+house.
+
+"The only way," said one, "would be to break down the door of the
+pantry which they always lock at night."
+
+"But," said another, "that'll make so much noise it will wake up the
+whole house."
+
+"Then one of us," said the first robber, "will have to creep in
+through the window and unlock the door."
+
+"But the window is too small," said the third robber; "none of us
+could get through it."
+
+"But I can," called out Thumbkin.
+
+"What is that? Who was that?" called out the robbers, who commenced
+thinking of running away. And then Thumbkin called out again:
+
+"Do not be afraid, I'll not hurt you, and I can help you get into the
+Squire's pantry."
+
+Then he came out of the hole in the tree, and the robbers were
+surprised to see how small he was. So they took him up with them to
+the Squire's house, and when they got there they lifted him up and put
+him through the window and told him to look out for the silver.
+
+"I've found it! I've found it!" he called out at the top of his shrill
+voice.
+
+"Not so loud; not so loud," said they.
+
+"What shall I hand out first, the spoons or the ladles?" he shouted
+out again.
+
+But this time the butler heard him and came down with his blunderbuss,
+and the robbers ran off. So when the butler opened the door Thumbkin
+crept out and went to the stable, and laid down to sleep in a nice
+cozy bed of hay in the manger.
+
+But in the morning the cows came into the stable, and one of them
+walked up to the manger. And what do you think she did? She swallowed
+the hay with little Thumbkin in it, and took him right down into her
+tummy.
+
+Shortly afterwards the cows were driven out to the milking place, and
+the milkmaid commenced to milk the cow which had swallowed Thumbkin.
+And when he heard the milk rattling into the pail he called out:
+
+"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"
+
+The milkmaid was so startled to hear a voice coming from the cow that
+she upset the milking pail and rushed to her master, and said:
+
+"The cow's bewitched! The cow's bewitched! She's talking through her
+tummy."
+
+The farmer came and looked at the cow, and when he heard Thumbkin
+speaking out of her tummy he thought the milkmaid was quite right, and
+gave orders for the cow to be slaughtered.
+
+And when she was cut up by the butcher he didn't want the paunch--that
+is the stomach--so he threw it out into the yard. And a wolf coming by
+swallowed the paunch and Thumbkin with it.
+
+When he found himself again in the wolf's stomach he called out as
+before:
+
+"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"
+
+But the wolf said to him:
+
+"What'll you do for me if I let you out?"
+
+"I know a place where you can get as many chickens as you like, and if
+you let me out I'll show you the way."
+
+"No, no, my fine master," said the wolf; "you can tell me where it is,
+and if I find you are right then I'll let you out."
+
+So Thumbkin told him a way to his father's farm, and guided him to a
+hole in the larder just big enough for the wolf to get through. When
+he got through there were two fine fat ducks and a noble goose hung up
+ready for the Sunday dinner. So Mr. Wolf set to work and ate the ducks
+and the goose while Thumbkin kept calling out:
+
+"Don't want any duck or geese. Let me out! Let me out!"
+
+And when the wolf would not he called out:
+
+"Father! Father! Mother! Mother!"
+
+And his father and mother heard him, and they came rushing towards the
+larder. Then the wolf tried to get through the hole he had come
+through before, but he had eaten so much that he stuck there, and the
+farmer and his wife came up and killed him.
+
+Then they began to cut the wolf open and Thumbkin called out:
+
+"Be careful! Be careful! I'm here, and you'll cut me up." And he had
+to dodge the knife as it was coming through the wolf.
+
+But at last the paunch of the wolf was slit open, and Thumbkin jumped
+out and went to his mother. And she cleansed him and dressed him in
+new clothes, and they sat down to supper as happy as could be.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"]
+
+SNOWWHITE
+
+
+There was once a queen who had no children, and it grieved her sorely.
+One winter's afternoon she was sitting by the window sewing when she
+pricked her finger, and three drops of blood fell on the snow. Then
+she thought to herself:
+
+"Ah, what would I give to have a daughter with skin as white as snow
+and cheeks as red as blood."
+
+After a while a little daughter came to her with skin as white as
+snow and cheeks as red as blood. So they called her Snowwhite.
+
+But before Snowwhite had grown up, her mother, the Queen, died and her
+father married again, a most beautiful princess who was very vain of
+her beauty and jealous of all women who might be thought as beautiful
+as she was. And every morning she used to stand before her mirror and
+say:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+And the mirror always used to reply:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ The greatest beauty is thine own."
+
+But Snowwhite grew fairer and fairer every year, till at last one day
+when the Queen in the morning spoke to her mirror and said:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+the mirror replied:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."
+
+Then the Queen grew terribly jealous of Snowwhite and thought and
+thought how she could get rid of her, till at last she went to a
+hunter and engaged him for a large sum of money to take Snowwhite out
+into the forest and there kill her and bring back her heart.
+
+But when the hunter had taken Snowwhite out into the forest and
+thought to kill her, she was so beautiful that his heart failed him,
+and he let her go, telling her she must not, for his sake and for her
+own, return to the King's palace. Then he killed a deer and took back
+the heart to the Queen, telling her that it was the heart of
+Snowwhite.
+
+Snowwhite wandered on and on till she got through the forest and came
+to a mountain hut and knocked at the door, but she got no reply. She
+was so tired that she lifted up the latch and walked in, and there she
+saw three little beds and three little chairs and three little
+cupboards all ready for use. And she went up to the first bed and lay
+down upon it, but it was so hard that she couldn't rest; and then she
+went up to the second bed and lay down upon that, but that was so soft
+that she got too hot and couldn't go to sleep. So she tried the third
+bed, but that was neither too hard nor too soft, but suited her
+exactly; and she fell asleep there.
+
+In the evening the owners of the hut, who were three little dwarfs who
+earned their living by digging coal in the hills, came back to their
+home. And when they came in, after they had washed themselves, they
+went to their beds, and the first of them said:
+
+"Somebody has been sleeping in my bed!"
+
+And then the second one said:
+
+"And somebody's been sleeping in my bed!"
+
+And the third one called out in a shrill voice, for he was so excited:
+
+"Somebody is sleeping in my bed, just look how beautiful she is!"
+
+So they waited till she woke up, and asked her how she had come there,
+and she told them all that the hunter had said to her about the Queen
+wanting to slay her.
+
+Then the dwarfs asked her if she would be willing to stop with them
+and keep house for them; and she said that she would be delighted.
+
+Next morning the Queen went up as usual to her mirror, and called out:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+And the mirror answered as usual:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."
+
+And the Queen knew that Snowwhite had not been slain. So she sent for
+the hunter and made him confess that he had let Snowwhite go; and she
+made him search about beyond the forest, till at last he brought back
+word to her that Snowwhite was dwelling in a little hut on the hill
+with some coal-miners.
+
+Then the Queen dressed herself up like an old woman, and, taking a
+poisoned comb with her, went back the next day to the hut where
+Snowwhite was living. Now the dwarfs had warned her not to open the
+door to anybody lest evil might befall her; and she found it very
+lonesome keeping always within doors.
+
+When the Queen, disguised as an old woman, came to the door of the
+house she knocked upon it with her stick, but Snowwhite called out
+from within:
+
+"Who is there? Go away! I must not let anybody come in."
+
+"All right," answered the Queen. "If you can come to the window we can
+have a little chat there, and I can show you my wares."
+
+So when Snowwhite came to the window the Queen said:
+
+"Oh, what beautiful black hair; you ought to have a comb to bind it
+up;" and she showed her the comb that she had brought with her.
+
+But Snowwhite said:
+
+"I have no money and cannot afford to buy so fine a comb."
+
+Then the Queen said:
+
+"That is no matter; perhaps you have something golden that you can
+give me in exchange."
+
+And Snowwhite thought of a golden ring that her father had given to
+her, and offered to give it for the comb. The Queen took it and gave
+Snowwhite the comb and bade her good-bye, and went back to the palace.
+
+Snowwhite lost no time in going to the mirror, and binding up her hair
+and putting the comb into it. But it had scarcely been in her hair a
+few minutes when she fell down as if she were dead, and all the blood
+left her cheeks, and she was Snowwhite indeed.
+
+When the dwarfs came home that evening they were surprised to find
+that the table was not spread for them, and looking about they soon
+found Snowwhite lying upon the ground as if she were dead. But one of
+them listened to her heart and said: "She lives! She lives!"
+
+And they began to consider what caused Snowwhite to fall into such a
+swoon. They soon found the comb, and when they took it out Snowwhite
+soon opened her eyes and became as lively as she ever was before.
+
+Next morning the Queen went to the mirror on the wall and said to it:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+Then the mirror said as before:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."
+
+Then the Queen knew that something had happened to the comb and that
+Snowwhite was still alive. So she dressed herself once more as an old
+woman and took with her a poisoned ribbon and went to the hut of the
+three dwarfs. And when she got there she knocked at the door, but
+Snowwhite called out:
+
+"You cannot enter; I must not open the door."
+
+Then, as before, the Queen called out in reply:
+
+"Then come to the window, and you can see my wares."
+
+When Snowwhite came to the window the Queen said:
+
+"You are looking more beautiful than ever, but how unbecomingly you
+arrange your hair. Did you use that comb I gave you yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Snowwhite, "and I fell into a swoon because of it;
+I am afraid there is something the matter with it."
+
+"No, no, that cannot be," said the Queen; "there must be some mistake.
+But if you cannot use the comb I will let you have this pretty ribbon
+instead," and she held out the poisoned ribbon. Snowwhite took it, and
+after the old woman, as she thought she was, had gone away, Snowwhite
+went to the mirror and tied up her hair with the piece of ribbon. But
+scarcely had she done so when she fell to the ground lifeless and lay
+there as if she were dead.
+
+That evening the dwarfs came home and found Snowwhite lying on the
+ground as if dead, but soon discovered the poisoned ribbon and untied
+it; and almost as soon as this was done Snowwhite revived again.
+
+Next morning the Queen went once more to the mirror on the wall, and
+called out:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+to which the mirror replied, without any change:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."
+
+And the Queen recognized that once again her plans had failed, and
+Snowwhite was still alive. So she dressed herself once more and took
+with her a poisoned apple, which was so arranged that only one half of
+it was poisoned and the rest of it was left as before. And when the
+Queen got to the hut of the dwarfs she tried to open the door, but
+Snowwhite called out:
+
+"You can't come in!"
+
+"Then I'll come to the window," said the Queen.
+
+"Ah, you are the old lady that came twice before; you have not brought
+me good luck, each time something has befallen me."
+
+But the Queen said:
+
+"I do not know how that can be; I only brought you something for your
+hair; perhaps you tied it too tight. To show you that I have no
+ill-will against you I have brought you this beautiful apple."
+
+"But my guardians," said Snowwhite, "told me that I must take nothing
+more from you."
+
+"Oh, this is nothing to wear," said the Queen, "this is something to
+eat. To show you that there can be no harm in it I will take half of
+it myself and you shall eat the other half."
+
+So she cut the apple in two and gave the poisoned half to Snowwhite.
+And the moment she had swallowed the first bite of it she fell down
+dead. Then the Queen slunk away and went back to the palace and went
+at once to her chamber and addressed the mirror on the wall:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+And this time the mirror answered, as it used to do:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ The greatest beauty is thine own."
+
+Then the Queen knew that Snowwhite was dead at last, and that she was
+without a rival in beauty.
+
+When the dwarfs came home that night they found Snowwhite lying upon
+the ground quite dead, and could not find out what had happened or
+how they could cure her. But, though she seemed dead, Snowwhite kept
+her beautiful white skin and seemed more like a statue than a dead
+person. So the dwarfs had a glass coffer made, and put Snowwhite in
+and locked it up. And she remained there for days and days without
+changing the slightest, looking oh, so beautiful under the glass case.
+
+Now a great prince of the neighbouring country happened to be hunting
+near the hill of the dwarfs and called at their hut to get a glass of
+water. And when he came in he found nobody there but Snowwhite lying
+in her crystal coffer. And he fell at once in love with her and sat by
+her side till the dwarfs came home, and he asked them who she was.
+Then they told him her history, and he begged that he might carry the
+coffer away so that he might always have her near him. At first they
+would not do so. But he showed how much he loved her, so that they at
+last yielded, and he called for his men to carry the coffer home to
+his palace.
+
+And when the men commenced carrying the coffer down the mountain they
+jolted it so much that the piece of poisoned apple in Snowwhite's
+throat fell out, and she revived and opened her eyes and looked upon
+the Prince who was riding by her side. Then he ordered the coffer to
+be opened, and told her all that had happened. And he took her home to
+his castle and married her.
+
+After this happened the Queen once more came to her room and spoke to
+the mirror on the wall and said:
+
+ "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
+ Who is the fairest of us all?"
+
+And the mirror this time said again:
+
+ "Queen, Queen, on thy throne,
+ Snowwhite's the fairest thou must own."
+
+And the Queen was so enraged because she had not destroyed Snowwhite
+that she rushed to the window and threw herself out of it and died on
+the spot.
+
+[Illustration: Snowwhite and the Three Dwarfs]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO NOTES
+
+
+Ever since the Brothers Grimm in 1812 made for the first time a fairly
+complete collection of the folk-tales of a definite local or national
+area in Europe, the resemblance of many of these tales, not alone in
+isolated incidents but in continuous plots, has struck inquirers into
+these delightful little novels for children, as the Italians call them
+(_Novelline_). Wilhelm Grimm, in the comparative notes which he added
+to successive editions of the _Mährchen_ up to 1859, drew attention to
+many of these parallels and especially emphasized the resemblances of
+different incidents to similar ones in the Teutonic myths and sagas
+which he and his brother were investigating. Indeed it may be said
+that the very considerable amount of attention that was paid to the
+collection of folk tales throughout Europe for the half century
+between 1840 and 1890 was due to the hope that they would throw some
+light upon the origins of mythology. The stories and incidents common
+to all the European field were thought likely to be original
+mythopoeic productions of the Indo-European peoples just in the same
+manner as the common roots of the various Aryan languages indicated
+their original linguistic store.
+
+In 1864 J. G. von Hahn, Austrian Consul for Eastern Greece, in the
+introduction to his collection of Greek and Albanian folk tales, made
+the first attempt to bring together in systematic form this common
+story-store of Europe and gave an analysis of forty folk-tale and saga
+"formulæ," which outlined the plots of the stories found scattered
+through the German, Greek, Italian, Servian, Roumanian, Lithuanian,
+and Indian myth and folk-tale areas. These formulæ were translated and
+adapted by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould in an appendix to Henderson's
+_Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England_ (London, 1866), and he
+expanded them into fifty-two formulæ. Those were the days when Max
+Müller's solar and lunar explanations of myths were in the ascendant
+and Mr. Baring-Gould applied his views to the explanation of folk
+tales. I have myself expanded Hahn's and Baring-Gould's formulæ into a
+list of seventy-two given in the English Folk-Lore Society's
+_Hand-Book of Folk-Lore_, London, 1891 (repeated in the second
+edition, 1912).
+
+Meanwhile the erudition of Theodor Benfey, in his introduction to the
+Indian story book, _Pantschatantra_ (Leipzig, 1859), had suggested
+another explanation of the similarities of European folk-tales. For
+many of the incidents and several of the complete tales Benfey showed
+Indian parallels, and suggested that the stories had originated in
+India and had been transferred by oral tradition to the different
+countries of Europe. This entirely undermined the mythological
+theories of the Grimms and Max Müller and considerably reduced the
+importance of folk tales as throwing light upon the primitive
+psychology of the Aryan peoples. Benfey's researches were followed up
+by E. Cosquin who, in the elaborate notes to his _Contes de Lorraine_,
+Paris, 1886, largely increased the evidence both for the common
+European popularity of many of the tales and incidents as well as for
+the parallels to be found in Oriental collections.
+
+Still a third theory to account for the similarity of folk-tale
+incidents was started by James A. Farrer and elaborated by Andrew Lang
+in connection with the general movement initiated by Sir Edward Tylor
+to explain mythology and superstition by the similar processes of
+savage psychology at definite stages of primitive culture. In
+introductions to Perrault and Grimm and elsewhere, Andrew Lang
+pointed out the similarity of some of the incidents of folk
+tales--speaking of animals, transference of human feeling to inanimate
+objects and the like--with the mental processes of contemporary
+savages. He drew the conclusion that the original composers of fairy
+tales were themselves in a savage state of mind and, by inference,
+explained the similarities found in folk tales as due to the
+similarity of the states of minds. In a rather elaborate controversy
+on the subject between Mr. Lang and myself, carried through the
+transactions of the Folk-Lore Congress of 1891, the introduction to
+Miss Roalfe Cox's "Cinderella," and in various numbers of "Folk-Lore,"
+I urged the improbability of this explanation as applied to the
+_plots_ of fairy tales. Similar states of mind might account for
+similar incidents arising in different areas independently, but not
+for whole series of incidents artistically woven together to form a
+definite plot which must, I contended, arise in a single artist mind.
+The similarities in plot would thus be simply due to borrowing from
+one nation to another, though incidents or series of incidents might
+be inserted or omitted during the process. Mr. Lang ultimately yielded
+this point and indeed insisted that he had never denied the
+possibility of the transmission of complete folk-tale formulæ from one
+nation and language to another.
+
+During all this discussion as to the causes of the similarity of
+folk-tale plots no attempt has been made to reconstitute any of these
+formulæ in their original shape. Inquirers have been content to point
+out the parallelisms to be found in the various folk-tale collections,
+and of course these parallelisms have bred and mustered with the
+growth of the collections. In some cases the parallels have run into
+the hundreds. (See "Reynard and Bruin.") In only one case have
+practically all the parallels been brought together in a single volume
+by Miss Roalfe Cox on Cinderella (Folk-Lore Society Publication for
+1893; see notes on "Cinder-Maid"). These variants of incidents
+obviously resemble the _variæ lectiones_ of MSS. and naturally suggest
+the possibility of getting what may be termed the original readings.
+In 1889 the following suggestion was made by Mr. (now Sir) James G.
+Frazer in an essay on the "Language of Animals," in the _Archæological
+Review_, i., p. 84:
+
+"In the case of authors who wrote before the invention of printing,
+scholars are familiar with the process of comparing the various MSS.
+of a single work in order from such a comparison to reconstruct the
+archetype or original MS., from which the various existing MSS. are
+derived. Similarly in Folk-Lore, by comparing the different versions
+of a single tale, it may be possible to arrive, with tolerable
+certainty, at the original story, of which the different versions are
+more or less imperfect and incorrect representations."
+
+Independently of Sir James Frazer's suggestion, which I have only
+recently come across, I have endeavoured in the present book to carry
+it out as applied to a considerable number of the common formulas of
+European folk-tales, and I hope in a succeeding volume to complete the
+task and thus give to the students of the folk-tale as close approach
+as possible to the original form of the common folk-tales of Europe as
+the materials at our disposal permit.
+
+My procedure has been entirely similar to that of an editor of a text.
+Having collected together all the variants, I have reduced them to
+families of types and from these families have conjectured the
+original concatenation of incidents into plot. I have assumed that the
+original teller of the tale was animated by the same artistic logic as
+the contemporary writers of _Contes_ (see notes on "Cinder-Maid,"
+"Language of Animals"), and have thus occasionally introduced an
+incident which seemed vital to the plot, though it occurs only in some
+of the families of the variants. My procedure can only be justified by
+the success of my versions and their internal coherence. As regards
+the actual form of the narrative, this does not profess to be European
+but follows the general style of the English fairy tale, of which I
+have published two collections (_English Fairy Tales_, 1890; _More
+English Fairy Tales_, 1894).
+
+In the following notes I have not wasted space on proving the European
+character of the various tales by enumerating the different variants,
+being content for the most part to give references to special
+discussions of the story where the requisite bibliography is given.
+With the more serious tales I have rather concerned myself with trying
+to restore the original formula and to establish its artistic
+coherence. Though I have occasionally discussed an incident of
+primitive character, I have not made a point of drawing attention to
+savage parallels, nor again have I systematically given references to
+the appearance of whole tales or separate incidents in mediæval
+literature or in the Indian collections. For the time being I have
+concentrated myself on the task of getting back as near as possible to
+the original form of the fairy tales common to all Europe. Only when
+that has been done satisfactorily can we begin to argue as to the
+causes or origin of the separate items in these originals. It must, of
+course, always be remembered that, outside this common nucleus, each
+country or linguistic area has its own story-store, which is equally
+deserving of special investigation by the serious student of the
+folk-tale. I have myself dealt with some of these non-European or
+national folk-tales for the English, Celtic and Indian areas and hope
+in the near future to treat of other folk-tale districts, like the
+French, the Scandinavian, the Teutonic or the Slavonian.
+
+I had gone through three-quarters of the tales and notes contained in
+the present book before I became acquainted with the modestly named
+_Anmerkungen zu Grimm's Mährchen_, 2 vols., 1913-15, by J. Bolte and
+E. Polivka. This is one of those works of colossal erudition of which
+German savants alone seem to have the secret. It sums up the enormous
+amount of research that has been going on in Europe for the last
+hundred years, on the parallelism and provenance of the folk-tales of
+Europe, and in a measure does for all the Grimm stories what Miss
+Roalfe Cox did for Cinderella. Only two volumes have as yet appeared
+dealing with the first 120 numbers of the Grimm collection in over a
+thousand pages crammed with references and filled with details as to
+variants. The book has obviously been planned and worked out by Dr.
+Bolte, who had previously edited the collected works of his chief
+predecessor, R. Koehler. Dr. Polivka's contribution mainly consists in
+the collection and collation of the Slavonic variants, which are here
+made accessible for the first time. I therefore refer to the volume
+henceforth by Dr. Bolte's name. The book is indispensable for the
+serious students of the folk-tale, and would have saved me an immense
+amount of trouble if I had become acquainted with it earlier.
+
+In thirty-eight or nearly a third of the tales Dr. Bolte gives a
+formula, or radicle, summing up the "common form" of the story, and I
+am happy to find that in those cases, which occur in the early part of
+the present volume, my own formulæ, agree with his, though of course
+for the purposes of this book I have had to go into more detail. Dr.
+Bolte has not as yet expounded any theory of the origin of the Folk
+Tale, but, with true scientific caution, judges each case on its
+merits. But his whole treatment assumes the organic unity of each
+particular formula, and one cannot conceive him regarding the
+similarities of the tales as due to similar mental workings of the
+folk mind at a particular stage of social development.
+
+Finally, I should perhaps explain that in my selection of typical
+folk-tales for the present volume, I have included not only those
+which could possibly be traced back to real primitive times and mental
+conditions, like the "Cupid and Psyche" formula, but others of more
+recent date and composition, provided they have spread throughout
+Europe, which is my criterion. For instance "Beauty and the Beast" in
+its current shape was composed in the eighteenth century, but has
+found its place in the story-store of European children. A couple,
+like "Androcles and the Lion" and "Day Dreaming," owe a similar spread
+to literary communication even though in the latter case it is the
+popular literature of the _Arabian Nights_. These must be regarded as
+specimens only of a large class of stories that are found among the
+folk and can be traced in the popular mediæval collections like
+Alfonsi's _Disciplina-Clericalis_ or Jacques de Vitry's _Exempla_, not
+to speak of the _Fables of Bidpai_ or _The Seven Wise Masters of
+Rome_. These form quite a class by themselves and though they have
+come to be in many cases Folk-Lore of European spread, they differ in
+quality from the ordinary folk-tale which is characterized by its
+tendency to variation as it passes from mouth to mouth. Still one has
+to recognize that they are now European and take their place among the
+folk and for that reason I have given a couple of specimens of them,
+but of course my main attention has been directed to attempting to
+reconstruct the original form of the true folk-tale from the
+innumerable variants now current among the folk.
+
+
+I. CINDER-MAID
+
+_Source._--Miss Roalfe Cox's volume on Cinderella, published by the
+Folk-Lore Society (London: David Nutt, 1893), contains 130 abstracts
+and tabulations of the pure Cinderella "formula," found in Finland,
+the Riviera, Scotland, Italy, Armenia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden,
+France, Greece, Germany, Spain, Calcutta, Ireland, Servia, Poland,
+Russia, Denmark, Albania, Cyprus, Galicia Lithuania, Catalonia,
+Portugal, Sicily, Hungary, Martinique, Holland, Bohemia, Bulgaria,
+and the Tyrol. Besides these there are 31 intermediate stories
+approximating to the Cinderella type, from Russia, Asia Minor, Italy,
+Lorraine, The Deccan, Poland, Hungary, Catalonia, Corsica, Finland,
+Switzerland, and in Basque, Spain. The earliest form in which the pure
+type occurs is in Basile's _Pentamerone_, 1634, and of the
+indeterminate type in Bonaventure des Periers _Nouvelles Récréations_,
+1557, though the latter seems more cognate to the Catskin formula.
+
+In many of the variants there is an introductory series of incidents
+in which the heroine, after the loss of her mother, is set tasks by
+the envious step-mother and sisters, which she is aided to perform by
+means of an animal helper, mainly sheep or cow, which, in some of the
+versions, is clearly identified with her mother either in a
+transformed or a natural state. In these versions the magic dresses,
+for example, are taken out of the ear of the cow or sheep! These
+incidents however seem to me to be incongruous with the rest of the
+story, which involves a monogamous society with fairly fixed social
+grades and with the wearing of shoes at least among the upper strata
+of society. They belong rather to the type of story represented by the
+Grimm's "One eye, Two eyes, Three eyes"; and I have therefore reserved
+them for my retelling of this formula. In a similar way, in some of
+the Celtic versions, a long series of incidents is inserted, clearly
+taken from the Sea Maiden story (see _Celtic Fairy Tales_, xvii.).
+
+The central incident of the Cinder-Maid formula is clearly the Shoe
+Marriage Test, up to which everything leads and upon which the
+mutilation incidents at the end depends. The mutilation again implies
+that the shoe in question must have been of a hard or metallic
+substance which could not be pressed out of shape. In the form
+endeared to most European children of the upper classes by Charles
+Perrault, the slipper is made of glass. It was first suggested by
+Balzac that Perrault's _pantoffles de verre_ was due to his
+misunderstanding of the _pantoffles de vair_, or fur (the word _vair_
+is still used to indicate this in heraldry), which he had heard from
+his nurse or other folk-tale informant. But the step-sisters would not
+have been compelled to hack their heels to get inside a fur slipper,
+and, from this point of view, the glass shoe would be preferable. I
+have had, however, to reject it because it occurs in only six of the
+variants obviously derived directly, or indirectly, from Perrault. The
+majority of the versions prefer _gold_ (see Miss Roalfe Cox's
+enumeration p. 342).
+
+The Shoe Marriage Test again involves the previous meetings of the
+high-born lover and the menial heroine, transformed for the nonce by
+her dress into a dame of equal standing. In some of the variants these
+meetings are in church and not at a ball, royal or otherwise. But the
+Shoe Marriage Test involves a highly desirable _parti_ who can
+practically command any wife he desires; this points to some
+super-chief or king. I have, therefore, reserved the church meetings
+for the Catskin type of story in which the heroine is scullery-maid in
+the young lord's own household. The obtaining of the dresses needed
+for the Royal Balls involves some animal or supernatural aid (in
+Perrault it is, of course, a fairy god-mother, unknown to the folk
+mind), while the menial condition of the heroine is best explained in
+the usual folk-tale manner by the envious step-mother or sisters.
+
+I have pointed out in _English Fairy Tales_ (Note to "Childe Rowland")
+that in most folk-tales of a romantic type the mode of telling is by
+prose narrative interspersed with rhyming formulæ analogous to the
+cante-fable as in "Aucassin and Nicolete." The Cinderella formula
+shows clear traces of such rhymes, especially at the stages of the
+narrative where incidents are repeated--the appeal for aid at the
+mother's grave (Dress Rhyme), the avoidance of pursuit by the guards
+(Pursuit Rhyme), and the calling attention of the Prince to the
+mutilated feet of the step-sisters (Feet Rhyme).
+
+Now some of these rhymes are found in similar and almost identical
+shape in collections made in different countries and different
+languages; thus the Tree Rhyme is found in the _Archivio_ (Cox, p.
+139) and in Ive (p. 265), in Bechstein (p. 166), and in Grimm (p.
+222), and in Hahn (p. 244), and Moe (p. 322), each pair having
+practically identical rhymes. Thus we have the existence of a Tree
+Rhyme, shown in Italy and Germany, Greece and Denmark. So, too, the
+Feet Rhyme is found in Scotland and Denmark, Germany and Brittany. It
+is scarcely possible to doubt that all these came from one original
+form of the story in which similar rhymes occurred at the same stage
+of the narrative. The possibility of such coincidences arising
+casually may fairly be regarded as out of the question.
+
+The subordinate incidents growing out of these essential elements of
+the formula are of course more flexible, but the Shoe Marriage Test
+itself involves some remarkable dresses used to disguise the identity
+of the Cinder Maid at her meetings with the hero, and this again
+involves, though not so directly, a series of metal carriages. The
+Pursuit Rhyme might easily give rise to the expedients of the Honey
+and Tar Traps though these do not occur in very many of the variants.
+I have never-the-less inserted them for the sake of the children if
+not for that of Folk-Lore Science.
+
+Thus, from what may be called the artistic logic of the Cinderella
+story, one is enabled to reconstitute its original formula somewhat as
+follows:
+
+Noble Father--Single Daughter--Mother's Death--Tree Planted on
+Mother's Grave--Second Marriage--Two Ugly Step-Sisters--Menial
+Heroine--Cinder-Maid--Prince Coming of Age--Royal Ball--Step-Sisters
+Dressing--Tree Rhyme--Bird Aid--Magic Dress (blue heaven with
+stars)--Copper Chariot from Tree--Copper Shoes--Caution Rhyme--Ball
+Success--Pursuit Rhyme--Step-Sisters' Envy--Second Ball--Magic Dress
+(golden brown earth with flowers)--Silver Chariot--Silver Shoes--Honey
+trap--Pursuit Rhyme--Third Ball--Magic Dress (green sea with
+waves)--Golden Chariot--Golden Slippers--Tar Trap (lost shoe)--Time
+Expired--Shoe Marriage Test--Mutilated Foot--Feet Rhyme (_bis_)--Happy
+Marriage.
+
+It is in accordance with the above formula that the version presented
+in the preceding pages has been written, the rhymes being, in most
+cases, compounded from the various renderings given in Miss Cox's
+volume. I have only added the Caution Rhyme about returning at
+midnight, which is in prose in the versions; it would be incongruous
+for the little bird to change her mode of diction so suddenly. I can
+only hope I will not remind the reader of the guide's description of
+Wallenstein's horse at Prague: "The head, neck, forelegs, left
+hind-leg, and part of the back and tail have been restored; all the
+rest is the original horse."
+
+_Parallels._--Miss Cox's volume contains all the parallels of the
+Cinder-Maid formulæ, to which reference has been made above, and she
+has supplemented these by a few additional ones in _Folk-Lore_ for
+1907, pages xviii; 191-6. In addition, she gives, in her notes,
+parallels to the different incidents:
+
+Note 4. (Help by dead parent.) Note 6. (Pursuit checked by mist.) Note
+7. (Magic tree on buried mother's grave.) Note 8. (Substituted bride.)
+Note 26. (Sitting on ashes.) Note 32. (Birds' language.) Note 38.
+(Tree or rock treasures.) Note 48. (Lost shoe.) Note 50. (Iron shoes,)
+and further notes on, Helpful, animals, p. 526. Fairy god-mother, p.
+527 and Talking birds, p. 527-9.
+
+Of these the most important for our present purposes is the 48th note
+dealing with the Lost Shoe, which we have suggested is the central
+incident in the "original." In Strabo xvii. and in Ælian xiii.--33,
+the myth of Rhodope informs us that, while she was bathing, an eagle
+snatched one of her sandals and dropped it in the lap of Psammetichus
+who, struck by its neatness, had all Egypt search for its owner, whom
+he then took to wife. In other Egyptian and in Indian stories a
+severed lock of hair of the heroine leads to the same result. Jacob
+Grimm drew attention to the old German custom of using a shoe at
+betrothals, which was placed on the bride's foot as a sign of her
+being subjected to the groom's authority. King Rother had two shoes
+forged, a silver and a golden one, which he fitted on the feet of his
+bride, placed on his knee for that purpose. (See _Deutsche
+Rechts-Alterthumer_, Göttingen, 1828, p. 155.) It is, of course,
+possible that some reminiscence of the Rhodope myth had spread among
+the folk to which the original teller of Cinder-Maid belonged, and if
+the shoe betrothal was confined to German custom this would seem to
+give a clue to the original home of the Cinder-Maid.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+_Remarks._--The hazardous character of the reconstruction process
+involved in the restoration of the original Cinder-Maid formula
+cannot, of course, be exaggerated. It is even more precarious than the
+similar procedure gone through by scholars to restore the original
+reading of MSS. or by the Higher Critics in recovering the J.
+narrative of Joseph or the E. narrative of Lot. But I think I have
+shown that the incidents selected by me are those which are
+necessitated by the artistic logic of the Shoe Marriage Test which
+forms the decisive incident in the Cinder-Maid formula. Where the
+majority of the incidents contained in the reconstruction occurred in
+the same order in far distant countries it is practically impossible
+to imagine that the resemblance is due to chance. Nor is it pertinent
+to point out that the separate incidents occur equally widespread in
+connection with other formulæ, since it must not be forgotten that no
+folk teller ever indulges in a single incident; he tells a tale of
+many incidents. At the same time it is obvious that a series of
+incidents may be transferred appropriately (or inappropriately) from
+one tale to another; and this has occurred with the Cinderella tales,
+as is shown abundantly in Miss Cox's notes. It is thus quite easy for
+a folk teller, who is familiar with other stories, to introduce an
+analogous set of incidents in the Cinder-Maid formula, just as Rob
+Roy's son can introduce variations of an air when playing the
+bagpipes; but the air remains the same throughout.
+
+If the formula I have reconstructed for the Cinder-Maid compares at
+all with the original, one ought to be able to take any variant and
+see where the teller of it has diverged from the original, inserted
+new incidents or adopted new ones to local conditions. When one reads
+over Miss Cox's variants one can often discern such additions or
+variations introduced by the fancy of the teller. It is even possible
+that in Cinderella itself the original folk artist who conceived it
+made use of the Catskin formula to embellish the details of the three
+meetings of the lovers; even in my own telling I fear there may be
+traces of the same process. There is still doubt whether the bird in
+the hazel tree was meant to represent the soul of the mother in whom,
+we may even say, there is a double identification involved, as in the
+Golden Bough. The tree rising from the mother's grave is obviously
+connected spiritually with her; the relation of the bird in the tree
+to the Cinder-Maid also implies a similar relation to the mother. In
+my telling of the tale I have purposely avoided emphasizing this,
+which might lead to inconvenient questionings from the little ones. In
+the scheme of the story the guardian influence of the mother-soul is
+prominent throughout but need not be too much emphasized for modern
+children.
+
+
+II. ALL CHANGE
+
+This nonsense story is found widely spread, especially in Romance
+tongues, French, Italian, Provencal, and Portuguese; but it is also
+found in Ireland (see _Celtic Fairy Tales_), Hanover, Transylvania,
+Esthonia, and Russia; so that it has claims to be included in the
+fairy book of all Europe. Cosquin, ii., 209-14, gives a number of
+Oriental stories, Annamite, Kalmuk, Kaffir, which contain the incident
+of the girl in the bag, and Indian and Kabyle stories, which go
+through the same exchanges as our story. In the latter case it is an
+animal story in which the jackal has a thorn picked out of his paws by
+an old woman, and gets an egg out of her in exchange for the thorn
+which he has "lost." In this form the jackal helps considerably in the
+disappearance of the successive exchanges. It is difficult to say
+whether the European or the Indian form was the earlier. The animal
+_dramatis personæ_ seem less incongruous and turn the scale in favour
+of India.
+
+
+III. KING OF THE FISHES
+
+This is practically the Perseus legend of antiquity, which has been
+made the subject of an elaborate study by Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, _The
+Legend of Perseus_, 3 vols., London, 1894-6. Mr. Hartland
+distinguishes four chains of incidents in the story:
+
+1. The Supernatural Birth.
+2. The Life Token.
+3. The Rescue of Andromeda.
+4. The Medusa Witch.
+
+Not all the variants, which are very numerous, running from Ireland to
+Cambodia, include all these four incidents. The Greek Perseus legend,
+for instance, has not the Life Token. Cosquin, i., 67, knows of only
+eighteen which have the full contingent, one in Brittany, two in
+Greece, one in Sicily, four in Italy, one each--Basque, Spanish,
+Catalan, Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish; two German; one Lithuanian;
+and a Russian variant. There must be many more in Bolte's notes to
+Grimm, 60. These are sufficient to prove that the whole concatenation
+of incident is European, though it is difficult to understand how the
+Medusa incident got tacked on to the preceding three, with which it is
+very loosely combined, the only point of connection being with the
+Life Token. Strangely enough, in the ancient form of the folk-tale,
+the Gorgon is an almost essential part of the story, though the Life
+Token has disappeared, and the Supernatural Birth only applies to the
+hero and not to his animal companions. In the modern European
+folk-tales these animal friends are rather supernumeraries and are
+occasionally replaced by the formula of the Grateful Animals, to whom
+the hero does some service during his wanderings, in reward for which
+they rescue him from some extremity. In some ancient variants of the
+Perseus legend there are traces of the Substituted Champion in the
+form of Pentheus, a former suitor of Andromeda, who had failed to meet
+the dragon.
+
+It would be impossible here to consider the folk-lore analogies of the
+four chief incidents of the tale which have occupied Mr. Hartland for
+three fairly large volumes to develop, out of which have grown two
+more (_Primitive Paternity_, London, 1910). It is only necessary here
+to refer to a few points in their relation to the tale itself. The
+Supernatural Birth, which is also treated by M. Saintyves (?) is found
+attributed to heroes among all nations; it is only of significance in
+the story here in its bearing upon the Life Token of the hero, which
+is connected with it. With regard to the Life Token, Major Temple has
+a full analysis in the notes to _Wide Awake Stories_, 1884, pp. 404-5,
+under the title of the "Life Index," and is closely connected with
+the idea of the External Soul, which Sir James G. Frazer has studied
+in his _Balder_, London, 1913, pp. 95-152. The Fight with the Dragon
+is celebrated outside folk-tales in the lives of the saints (whence
+St. George, the titular saint of England, gets his emblem) in the saga
+of Siegfried, and in the poetry of Schiller, where it is made the
+subject of a moral apologue. The Medusa-witch, who transforms into
+stone, or destroys life in other ways, is quite a familiar figure in
+folk tales, but is usually thwarted, as here, by some means of cure.
+
+The chief interest, however, of the "King of the Fishes," from a
+folk-tale point of view, is the remarkable similarity of the later
+folk-tales with the Greek legend, from which they are separated by so
+many centuries. The absence of the Life Token in the Greek version and
+the comparative insignificance of Medusa in the modern tales are
+sufficient evidence that these latter are not directly derived from
+the former. Yet even Mr. Hartland, who is a strong adherent of the
+anthropological treatment of folk-tales, fully agrees that this
+particular tale must have, at one time, been composed in artistic
+unity, if not containing all the four chains of incidents at least
+containing two of them (_Legend of Perseus_, iii., 151). It should be
+added that Rassmann and the Grimms connect the folk-tales with the
+Siegfried saga (Bolte, i., 547, 555).
+
+
+IV. SCISSORS
+
+This familiar story is found as early as Pauli, "Schimpf und Ernst,"
+No. 595. It is frequent in Italy, especially in Pitre's Selections.
+Koehler has references to the other European versions in Bladé, p.
+155. Crane, _Italian Popular Tales_, No. xcvi, has rendered one of
+Pitre's versions.
+
+
+V. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
+
+This rather artificial tale has never-the-less spread through all
+Europe. One finds it in Italy almost in the same form as in the
+original French by the Princesse de Beaumont, from whom it has got
+into the ordinary fairy books of England, France and Germany. See
+Crane II., "Zelinda and the Monster," pp. 7-11, with note 6, p. 324,
+which contain a reference to Miss Stokes's _Indian Fairy Tales_, p.
+292. The Grimm story No. 108, "Hans the Hedgehog," is more primitive
+in character, and we get there the story how the Beast obtained his
+terrible form. I have, however, rejected this form of it as it is not
+so widespread as "Beauty and the Beast," which is one of the few
+stories that we can trace, spreading through Europe practically within
+our own time. The artificiality of the leading motive is sufficient
+proof of the late origin of the tale. But, after all, tradition does
+not distinguish between primitive or later strata. Ralston dealt with
+the whole formula from the sun-moon point of view in _Nineteenth
+Century_, Dec., 1878.
+
+
+VI. REYNARD AND BRUIN
+
+The main incidents of "Reynard the Fox" occur in folk-tales throughout
+Europe, and it has often been discussed whether the folk-tales were
+the foundation of the beast epic or vice versa. Since, however, it has
+been proven that many other incidents besides those used in the beast
+satire are found among the folk, it is generally allowed nowadays
+that, apart from a few Æsopic fables included in the satire, the main
+incidents were derived from the folk. On this subject see my
+introduction to "Reynard the Fox" in the Cranford Series.
+
+I have selected a number of the most characteristic of these
+folk-tales relating to the former friendship and later enmity of the
+Fox and the Bear, basing my compilation on the admirable monographs
+of Prof. K. Krohn of Helsingfors, "Mann und Fuchs," 1891, "Baer (Wolf)
+und Fuchs; eine nordische Tiermärchenkette," in _Journal de la Société
+Finno-Ougrienne_, vi., Helsingissa, 1889, and "Die geografische
+Verbreitung einer nordischen in Finnland," in _Fennia_, iv., 4. The
+latter monograph is accompanied by an interesting map of Finland,
+showing the distribution of the Scandinavian form of these stories, in
+which the Bear is the opponent of the Fox, and the Slavonic form in
+which the Wolf takes that position. As there is obviously a
+mythological tendency at the root of the stories, intending to account
+for the shortness of the Bear's tail and the white tip of the Fox's,
+it is clear that the Scandinavian form is the more original.
+
+I have tried to collect together in a logical narrative:
+
+(a) Fox and Bear in partnership--(Top-off, Half-gone, All-gone).
+(b) Fox in fish cart.
+(c) Iced Bear's tail.
+(d) Fox and cream jug.
+(e) Fox on Bear's back.
+(f) Fox in briar bush.
+(g) Man promises Fox two geese for freeing him from Bear.
+(h) Gives him two dogs.
+(k) Fox and limbs; sacrifices tail.
+
+In his article in _Fennia_, Prof. Krohn refers to no less than 708
+variants of these different episodes, of which, however, 362 are from
+the enormous Finnish collections of folk lore in possession of the
+Finnish Literary Society at Helsingfors. The others include the
+majority of European folk-tale collections with a goodly sprinkling of
+Asiatic, African and American ones, the last, however, being confined
+to "Uncle Remus," in which four out of the ten incidents occur in
+isolated adventures of Brer Rabbit.
+
+Many of the incidents occur separately in early literature; (g) (h)
+(k) for example, which form one sequence, are found not alone in
+Renard but also in Alfonsi, 1115, and Waldis. (c) The iced bear's tail
+occurs in the Latin _Ysengrimus_, of the twelfth century, in the
+_Renart_ of the thirteenth, and, strangely enough, in the Hebrew _Fox
+Fables_ of Berachyah ha-Nakadan, whom I have identified with an Oxford
+Jew late in the twelfth century. See my edition of Caxton, _Fables of
+Europe_, i., p. 176. The fact that ice is referred to in the last case
+would seem to preclude an Indian origin for this part of the
+collection.
+
+It is not quite certain however that all the above incidents were
+necessarily connected together originally. The fish cart (b), and the
+iced bear's tail (c), are so closely allied that they probably formed
+a unity in the original conception, though they are often found
+separately nowadays among the folk. Bear and Fox in partnership (a),
+is found elsewhere told of other animals, notably of the firm of Cat
+and Mouse in Grimm No. 2. It is difficult to determine at present
+whether stories relating to other animals, or even to associations of
+men, have been applied by peasant narrators to the general opposition
+of the sly _versus_ the strong animal, which they have dramatized in
+the beast satire of Reynard and Bruin.
+
+For a discussion of the whole subject, see A. Gerber, _Great Russian
+Animal Tales_, Baltimore, 1891, who discusses the incidents included
+in the above compilation in his notes on v. (a), i. (b), ii. (c), iii.
+(d), iv. (e), iva. (f), ix. (g), x. (h), xi. (k). It will be found
+that few of the other incidents contained in Gerber can be traced
+throughout Europe except when they are evidently derived from Æsop.
+
+
+VII. DANCING WATER
+
+This story has the peculiarity, that it occurs in the Arabian Nights
+as well as in so many European folk-tales. Hahn includes it under his
+formula No. 4, Genoveva (add Gonz. 5, Dozon 2, Denton 238, Day xix.),
+H. Coote, in _Folk-Lore Record_, vol. iii., part 2, in a paper on
+"Folk-Lore, the Source of some of M. Galland's Tales," contends that
+the "Tale of the Two Sisters who Envied their Cadette," as well as Ali
+Baba, Aladdin, and Ahmed and Paribanou, were derived from Arabic
+folk-lore rather than from any Arabic manuscript version. We know now
+that this is not true of Aladdin; and Zotenberg has traced all these
+extra tales of Galland to the oral recitation of his Christian
+dragoman Hanna. Coote finds the two envious sisters to be an enormous
+favorite in Italy and Sicily, being found in Pitre, Berti, Imbriani,
+Nerucci, and Comparetti. The story of the girl is sometimes told
+separately as a _fiaba_. Coote remarks that Leon Bruno is Greek (see
+Hahn, p. 131 and F. L. R., i., 209), and is derived from the _Arabian
+Nights_ in the story of the princess of the islands of Wakwak; it also
+occurs in Straparola and Madame D'Aulnoy; Brueyre has something
+similar in Brittany, p. 93; Kohler in _Melusine_, pp. 213, 214,
+compares the Breton tale, given there, with the _Arabian Nights_.
+
+The boy with the moon or the sun on his forehead is a frequent
+character in Indian folk-tales (see Temple, _Wide Awake Stories_). The
+possibility of Galland's version having passed into the East from
+Europe does not seem to have been considered till I suggested it in my
+Introduction to the _Arabian Nights_. There is little doubt that Open
+Sesame is European, and similarly this story occurs in Straparola
+early enough to prevent any possibility of doubt on the subject. The
+sequel of incidents appears to be as follows:
+
+Overheard Boasting--Three Marriages--Substituted Children--Quest
+Tasks--Life Token--Speech Taboo--Brother's Failure--Sister's
+Success--Guilt Revelation--Punishment of Envious Sisters. Some of
+these incidents, like the Life Token, occur in other collocations but
+are sufficiently appropriate here; Imbriani has three versions, vi.,
+vii., viii., with notes.
+
+I have mostly followed Crane, pp. 17-25 (see also his notes, pp.
+325-6).
+
+
+VIII. LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS
+
+_Source._--Sir J. G. Frazer, in _Archæological Review_, i., 81-91,
+161-81, who made an attempt, the first of its kind, to restore the
+original archetype of the story of "The Boy Who Became Pope," on the
+same principle as classical scholars restore readings from families of
+MSS. He uses Grimm, xxxiii.; Crane, xliii.; Sebillot, 2d series xxv.;
+and Fleury, 123 _seq._ I have, on the whole, followed his
+reconstruction, but have introduced, from the version in the "Seven
+Wise Masters," the motive for the father's anger when learning that he
+would have, some day, to offer his son water to wash in; Sir James, in
+a private communication, concurs in the insertion. The folk versions
+are, in this instance, peculiarly poor, and I have therefore had
+largely to rewrite, preserving, however, the common incidents.
+
+_Formula._--The following formula gives the common elements of the
+four parallels used by Sir James Frazer, with my insertion of the bird
+prophecy (father-water, mother-towel):
+
+Simple Boy--Sent to School--Learns Language of Dogs, Frogs and
+Birds--Bird Prophecy (Father-Water, Mother-Towel)--Hero
+Exposed--Intended Murderer Brings Back Deer's Heart--Three adventures
+on Road--Dogs Warn Burglary--Frog Restores Host to Sick Girl--Bird
+Prophesies Papacy (one of three companions)--Pope Election--Heavenly
+Sign (dove and bell)--Bird Prophecy Fulfilled--Father Repentance.
+
+_Parallels._--Besides the four sources used by Sir James Frazer, he
+gives two variants of the Breton from _Melusine_, i., cols. 300, 374,
+and the "Seven Wise Masters" version, with six variants: Russian,
+Masurian, two Basques, and a Turkish one. In the Russian version the
+father-water, mother-towel prophecy occurs, which could not have
+arisen independently. In the Masurian version the prophecy is more
+primitive ("Your mother will wash your feet, and your father will
+drink the water"). In the remaining versions the prophecy is more
+vague, that the parents shall be the son's servants. In the
+_Pentamerone_ there is a story in which a father has five simple sons
+whom he sends into the world to learn experience. The younger returns
+with a knowledge of the language of birds. But the rest of the story
+is not of our type.
+
+_Remarks._--In his second paper (_Arch. Rev._ i., 161 _seq._) Sir
+James Frazer has many interesting remarks upon the folk conception of
+the means of acquiring a knowledge of the language of animals. This is
+generally done by a gift of magic rings, or by eating magic plants
+(mainly fern) or eating serpents (generally white). Sir James Frazer
+connects the rings with serpents by suggesting that serpents are
+supposed to have stones in their head which confer magic powers (_As
+You Like It_, iv., 2.) He further connects the notion of eating
+serpents with acquiring the language of birds by referring to the
+views of Democritus that serpents are generated from the mixed blood
+of diverse birds and are therefore in a strict sense blood relations
+of them; this idea, he suggests, may have arisen from the fact that
+serpents eat birds' eggs. It would be an easy transition in
+folk-thought to consider that serpents would understand the language
+of the birds they ate and that persons eating serpents would
+understand the language of both. So Sigurd understands the language of
+birds, after eating the blood of Fafnir the Worm. But all this throws
+little light upon the story itself.
+
+Bolte gives, i., 323-4, many folk-tales in which the hero becomes not
+a pope but a king and compares the story of Joseph in the Bible as
+possibly a source of the Prophetic Dream of the father and mother
+waiting upon the son. The transference to the pope may have been
+influenced by the tradition given by Vincent of Beauvais (_Spec.
+Hist._, xxiv., 98) that Sylvester II. learned at Seville the language
+of birds. There was also the tradition that at the election of
+Innocent III., 1198, three doves flew about the cathedral, one of
+which, a white one, at last settled down upon his shoulder. Raumer,
+_Gesch. d. Hohenstaufen_, ii., 595.
+
+
+IX. THE THREE SOLDIERS
+
+This tale is widely spread through Europe, being found from Ireland to
+Greece, from Esthonia to Catalonia. It is generally told of three
+soldiers, or often brothers, but more frequently casual comrades. In
+Kohler's notes on Imbriani, p. 356-7, he points out that there are
+three different forms, in the first of which the fairy's gifts are
+recovered by means of a defect produced, which only one of the
+soldiers can cure. In the second form the latter part is wanting, and
+in the third the two gifts are restored by means of the third, which
+is generally in the form of a stick. See _English Fairy Tales_, No.
+32. In my reconstruction I have followed the first form. Cosquin, XI.,
+has a fairly good variant of this, with comparative notes. Crane,
+XXXI., gives, from Gonzenbach, the story of the shepherd boy who makes
+the princess laugh, which is allied to our formula, mainly by its
+second part. And it is curious to find the three soldiers reproduced
+in Campbell's Gaelic, No. 10. In this version the magic gifts are
+wheedled out of the soldiers by the princess, but they get them back
+and go back to their "girls."
+
+In the Chinese version of the Buddhist Tripitaka, a monk presents a
+man who has befriended him with a copper jug, which gives him all he
+wishes. The king gets this from the monk, but has to return it when he
+gets another jar which is full of sticks and stones. Aarne in
+_Fennia_, xxvii., 1-96, 1909, after a careful study of the numerous
+variants of the East and West, declares that the original contained
+three gifts and arose in southern Europe. From the three gifts came
+three persons and afterwards the form in which only two gifts occur.
+Against this is the earliest of the Tripitaka versions, 516 A.D.,
+which has only two magic gifts. Albertus Magnus was credited with a
+bag out of which used to spring lads with cudgels to assail his
+enemies.
+
+
+X. DOZEN AT ONE BLOW
+
+This story is familiar to English-speaking children as Jack the Giant
+Killer, but it is equally widespread abroad as told of a little tailor
+or cobbler. In the former case there is almost invariably the
+introduction of the ingenious incident, "Seven at a Blow," the number
+varying from three to twenty-seven. I have adopted a fair average. The
+latter part of the story is found very early in M. Montanus,
+_Wegfuehrer_, Strassburg, 1557, though most of the incidents occur in
+folk tales scattered throughout the European area. Bolte even suggests
+that the source of the whole formula is to be found in Montanus and
+gives references to early chapbook visions in German, Dutch, Danish,
+Swedish and English (i., 154-6). But the very numerous versions in
+East Europe must in that case have been derived from oral tradition
+from these. Something similar has even spread to Greenland, where the
+story of the Giant and the boy is told by Rae, _Great White
+Peninsula_. (See Grimm, tr. Hunt, i., 364.) The Dutch version is told
+of Kobis the Dauntless. Cosquin, who has two versions (8 and 25), has
+more difficulty than usual in finding the full plot in Oriental
+sources, though various incidents have obviously trickled through to
+the East, as for example the hero Nasnai Bahadur in the Caucasus, who
+overcomes his three narts, or giants, very much in the same manner as
+our tailor.
+
+
+XI. EARL OF CATTENBOROUGH
+
+This Puss-in-Boots formula has become universally European from
+Perrault's version, to whom we owe the boots that occur in no other
+version, so that I have been reluctantly obliged to take them off. But
+apart from this the story in its entirety existed earlier in
+Straparola, xi., 1, and in the _Pentamerone_, and is found widely
+spread through Italy (Pitre, 88; Imbriani, 10; Gonzenbach, 65, etc.),
+as well as in Hungary (Jones and Kropf, No. 1), Germany (Grimm, 33a),
+and even in Finland (see Jones and Kropf, p. 305). In some of these
+cases the cat is a vixen (or female fox), and the incident of the
+false bathing and the marriage occurs before reaching the ogre's
+castle, as is indeed more natural. I have, therefore, so far amended
+Perrault. In most of the folk versions the miller's son betrays
+ingratitude towards his animal protector, who sometimes reduces him to
+his original state. This final incident, unknown to Perrault, shows
+the independence of these versions from that contained in his Mother
+Goose Stories. In Sweden the hero, if one may speak Hibernically, is a
+girl, who turns up her nose at everything in the palace as not being
+so good as in her castle of Cattenburg (Thorpe quoted by Lang,
+_Perrault_, p. lxxi.). In India it is found in Day, _Folk Tales of
+Bengal_, under the title of "The Matchmaking Jackal," which has
+numerous Indian touches; thus the jackal remembers the grandeur of the
+weaver's forefathers and rolls himself in betel leaves. Sultan Darai,
+in the Swahili version (Steere), has the stripping incident and the
+no-talking trick, as well as the ingratitude at end. Lang argues
+elaborately that it is impossible to determine the original home of
+Puss-in-Boots, though he seems to own that it had one. His criterion
+is the absence or presence of a moral in the story, in this case the
+incident showing the ingratitude of the Marquis. This occurs, as we
+have seen, as far south as Madagascar, and as far east as India, but,
+after all, does not seem to be the essence of the story, though in one
+of the versions the cat does his tricks for the miller because he had
+previously saved him from the hunters. The late Mr. Ralston has an
+interesting article on Puss-in-Boots in the _Nineteenth Century_,
+August, 1883, though in his days there was a tendency to explain all
+fairy tales as variants of the Sun and Moon myths.
+
+It is right that I should add that the servant's evening salute has
+nothing to do with the story but is a tradition in my own family,
+where my grandfather's servant used to utter this rhyme in a sort of
+chant when bidding the family good-night.
+
+
+XII. THE SWAN MAIDENS
+
+The Swan Maidens occur very widely spread and have been studied with
+great diligence by Mr. E. S. Hartland in two chapters (x., xi.) of his
+_Science of Fairy Tales_ (pp. 255-347). In consonance with his general
+principle of interpretation, Mr. Hartland is mainly concerned with the
+traces of primitive thought and custom to be seen in the Swan Maidens.
+Originally these were, according to him, probably regarded as actual
+swans, the feathery robe being a later symbolic euphemism, though I
+would incidentally remark that the whole of the story _as a story_
+depends upon the seizure of a separate dress involving the capture of
+the swan bride. Mr. Hartland is inclined to believe partly with F.
+Liebrecht in _Zur Volkskunde_, pp. 54-65, that these mysterious
+visitors from another world are really the souls of deceased persons
+(probably regarded as totemistic ancestresses). In some forms of the
+story, enumerated by Mr. Hartland, the captured wife returns to her
+original home, not when she recovers her robe of feathers but when the
+husband breaks some tabu (strikes her, chides her, refers to her
+sisters, sees her nude, etc.).
+
+From the standpoint of "storyology" from which we are mainly
+considering the stories here purely as stories, the Swan Maidens
+formula is especially interesting as showing the ease with which a
+simple theme can be elaborated and contaminated by analogous ones. The
+essence of the story is the capture of a bride by a young man who
+seizes her garment and thus gets her _in manu_, as the Roman lawyers
+say. She bears him children, but, on recovering her garment, flies
+away and is no more heard of. Sometimes she superfluously imposes a
+tabu upon her husband, which he breaks and she disappears (Melusine
+variant; compare Lohengrin). This is the effective and affecting
+incident of which Matthew Arnold makes such good use in his _Merman_.
+It could obviously be used, as Mr. Hartland points out, in a
+quasi-mythological manner to account for supernatural ancestry, as in
+the cases of the physicians of Myddvai in Wales, or of the Counts of
+Lusignan. But on this simple basis folk tellers have developed
+elaborations derived from other formulæ. In several cases, notably in
+the _Arabian Nights_ (Jamshah and Hasan of Bassora), the capture of
+the swan maiden is preceded by the Forbidden Chamber formula. Then
+when the bride flies away there is the Bride-Quest, which is often
+helped by Thankful Animals and aided by the Magical Weapons. When the
+hero reaches the home of the bride he has often to undergo a
+Recognition-Test, or even is made to undertake Acquisition Tasks
+derived from the Jason formula; and even when he obtains his wishes in
+many versions of the story there is the Pursuit with Obstacles also
+familiar from the same formula.
+
+Cosquin, ii., 16, has, with his usual analytical grasp, seen the
+separable character of these various series of incidents. He, however,
+attempts to show that all of them, including the germ of the Swan
+Maidens, are to be found in the East, and is successful in affiliating
+the Greek of Hahn, No. 15, with the two stories of the _Arabian
+Nights_ mentioned above, as well as the Siberian version given by
+Radloff, iv., 321, the hero of which has even derived his name from
+the Jamshah of the _Thousand and One Nights_.
+
+In my own version I have utilized a few of these incidents but reserve
+most of them for their proper story environment. I have introduced,
+from the Campbell version, the phrase "seven Bens, and seven Glens,
+and seven Mountain Moors," which so attracted Stevenson's Catriona, in
+order to point out as a remarkable coincidence that Hasan of Bassora,
+in the _Arabian Nights_, flies over "seven Waddys, seven Seas, and
+seven Mountains." It is difficult to understand that such a remarkable
+phrase should recur accidentally in Bagdad and in the West Highlands.
+Without some actual intermediation, oral or literary, the hypothesis
+of universal human tendency can scarcely explain such a coincidence.
+
+
+XIII. ANDROCLES AND THE LION
+
+This well-known story occurs first in the fables of Phædrus, though
+not in the extant form, only being preserved in the mediæval prose
+version known as _Romulus_. It is also referred to in Appian, Aulus
+Gellius, and Seneca (see the references in my _History of Æsop_, p.
+243, Ro. III., i.). It is told in Caxton's _Esope_, p. 62, from whom I
+have borrowed a few touches. He calls his hero Androclus, whereas
+Painter, in his _Palace of Pleasure_, ed. Jacobs, i., 89-90, calls the
+slave Androdus. We moderns, including Mr. Bernard Shaw, get our
+"Androcles" from Day's _Sanford and Merton_. It also occurs in _Gesta
+Romanorum_, 104, edit., Oesterley, who gives a long list of parallels
+in almost all the countries of Europe.
+
+Benfey, in the introduction to his edition of _Pantschatantra_, i.,
+112, contends that the story is of Oriental origin, showing Buddhistic
+traits in the kindly relations between the slave and the lion; but the
+parallels he gives are by no means convincing, though the general
+evidence for Oriental provenance of many of Phædrus' fables gives a
+certain plausibility to this derivation. From our present standpoint
+this is of less importance since Androcles, though it has spread
+through Europe and is current among the folk, is clearly of literary
+origin and is one of the few examples where we can trace such literary
+spread.
+
+
+XIV. DAY DREAMING
+
+I have given the story of the barber's fifth brother from the _Arabian
+Nights_ as another example of the rare instances of tales that have
+become current among the folk, but which can be definitely traced to
+literary sources, though possibly, in the far-off past, it was a folk
+tale arising in the East. The various stages by which the story came
+into Europe have been traced by Benfey in the introduction to his
+edition of _Pantschatantra_, § 209, and after him by Max Mueller in
+his essay "On the Migration of Fables" (_Chips from a German
+Workshop_, iv., 145-209; it was thus a chip from another German's
+workshop). It came to Europe before the _Arabian Nights_ and became
+popular in La Fontaine's fable of Perrette who counted her chickens
+before they were hatched, as the popular phrase puts it. In such a
+case one can only give a reproduction of the literary _source_, and it
+is a problem which of the various forms which appear in the folk books
+should be chosen. I have selected that from the _Thousand and One
+Nights_ because I have given elsewhere the story of Perrette (Jacobs,
+_Æsop's Fables_, No. 45), and did not care to repeat it in this place.
+I have made my version a sort of composite from those of Mr. Payne and
+Sir Richard Burton, and have made the few changes necessary to fit the
+tale to youthful minds. It is from the quasi-literary spread of
+stories like this that the claim for an Oriental origin of all folk
+tales has received its chief strength, and it was necessary,
+therefore, to include one or two of them in _Europa's Fairy Book_
+(Androcles is another). But the mode of transmission is quite
+different and definitely traceable and, for the most part, the tales
+remain entirely unchanged; whereas, in the true folk tale, the popular
+story-tellers exercised their choice, modifying incidents and giving
+local colour.
+
+
+XV. KEEP COOL
+
+There is no doubt about the European character of this tale, which is
+found in Brittany, Picardy, Lorraine, among the Basques, in Spain,
+Corsica, Italy, Tyrol, Germany (though not in Grimm), among
+Lithuanians, Moravians, Roumanians, Greeks, Irish, Scotch, Danes,
+Norwegians (Cosquin, ii., 50). The central idea of the Rage-Wager is
+retained throughout, and in many places the punishment is the
+same--the loss of a strip of skin. In all but three instances the
+story is told of three brothers, which practically proves its
+identity. I have given the Irish version in _More Celtic Fairy Tales_.
+
+The "sells" however change considerably, though in most of them the
+final dénoument comes with the death or wounding of the wife. The
+pigs' tails incident is also very common and is indeed found in
+another set of tales, more of the Master Thief type. Campbell's No. 45
+had an entirely different set, some of them very amusing.
+Mac-A-Rusgaich has all three meals at once and lies down. He holds the
+plough and does nothing else; he sees after the mountain; literally
+casts ox-eyes at the master, and makes a sheep foot-path out of
+sheep's feet. I have taken from Campbell the direction to wash horses
+and stable within and without, though it does not occur elsewhere. Yet
+Mac-A-Rusgaich has a bout with a giant, in which he slits an
+artificial stomach, like Jack the Giant Killer; and this incident
+occurs in four other of the European tales, again showing identity.
+"Keep cool" is thus an interesting example of identity of framework,
+with variation of incident.
+
+
+XVI. THE MASTER THIEF
+
+The sneaking regard of the folk-mind for the clever rogue who can
+outwit the guardians of order (the ever-present enemy of the folk) was
+shown in early days by the myth of Rhampsinitus in Herodotus, ii.,
+121, which is found to this day among the Italians (see Crane, No. 44,
+and S. Prato, _La Leggenda del Tesoro di Rampsinite_, Como, 1882). But
+the more usual European form is that I have chosen for the text, the
+formula of which might be summed up as follows:
+
+Apprenticeship in thievery--Purse or life--Hanging "sell"--Master
+Thief--Three Tests--Horse from Stable--Sheet off bed--Priest in
+bag--Horse from under (Thumb-Bung).
+
+Almost the whole of this is found as early as Straparola i., 2, where
+Cassandrino is ordered by the provost of Perugia to steal his bed and
+his horse and to bring to him in a sack the rector of the village.
+
+The purse incident occurs in Brittany, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Tyrol;
+in Iceland (Arnason, p. 609) occurs the man twice hanged which also
+occurs in Norway, Ireland, Saxony, Tuscany, and in Germany (Kuhn and
+Schwartz, 362); in Servia (Vuk, 46) the Master Thief steals sheep by
+throwing two shoes successively in the road, which also occurs in
+Bengal (Day, xi.); the theft of the horse occurs in Brittany, Norway,
+Ireland, Tuscany, Scotland (Campbell, 40), Flanders, in Basque and
+Catalan, Russia and Servia. The third test of kidnapping the priest
+occurs in Brittany, Flanders, Norway, Basque, Catalan, Scotland,
+Ireland, Lithuania, Tuscany. In Iceland the persons carried away are a
+king and a queen.
+
+The three tests of the Master Thief, the stealing of bed, horse, and
+priest, occur as early as Straparola, i., 2, who also has a somewhat
+similar story of the "Scholar in Magic," viii., 5, which contains the
+zigzag transformation of the _Arabian Nights_. Both forms occur in
+Grimm, 68, 192. While the three tests are fairly uniform throughout
+Europe, the introduction by which the lad becomes a thief and proves
+himself a Master Thief varies considerably; and I have had to make a
+selection rather than a collation.
+
+In some forms the farmer has three sons, of whom the youngest adopts
+thievery as a profession, which indeed it was in the Middle Ages (as
+we know from the Cul-le-jatte of _The Cloister and the Hearth_). In
+Hahn, 3, the Master Thief has to bring a "Drakos" instead of a priest.
+Curiously enough, in Gonzenbach, 83, the Master Thief has to bring
+back a "dragu."
+
+In many of the variants the Master Thief executes his tricks in order
+to gain the King's daughter by a sort of Bride Wager. But in most
+cases he does them in order to escape the natural consequences of his
+thievery.
+
+
+XVII. THE UNSEEN BRIDEGROOM
+
+The adult reader will of course recognize that this is the story of
+Cupid and Psyche, as told by Apuleius, and translated with such
+felicity by Pater in his _Marius_, Pt. i., ch. 5. Though the names of
+the gods and goddesses--Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Juno, Proserpine,
+etc.--are scattered through the tale, it is now acknowledged on all
+hands that it has nothing to do with mythology but is a fairy tale
+pure and simple, as indeed is acknowledged by Apuleius who calls it a
+"fabella anilis." From this point of view it is of extreme interest to
+the student of the folk-tale as practically the same tale, with the
+Unseen Bridegroom, the Sight Taboo, the Jealous Mother-in-law, the
+Tasks, and the Visit to the Nether-World, occur in contemporary
+folk-tales scattered throughout Europe, from Norway (Dasent, "East o'
+the Sun and West o' the Moon") to Italy (Gonzenbach No. 15, Pitre No.
+18 given in Crane No. 1, _King of Love_); for the variants elsewhere
+see Koehler on Gonzenbach. The earliest form of the modern versions is
+found in Basile (1637), _Pentamerone_ v., 4, _The Golden Root_.
+
+Now there are several circumstances showing the identity of the
+ancient and modern forms of this story. All of them contain the
+punishment for curiosity motive, which is doubled both in Apuleius
+(with the coffer at the end) and in Basile and Crane. In several of
+the folk-tales the Ant-Help occurs in the performance of the tasks,
+and in Apuleius the successive visits to Juno and Ceres evidently
+represent the visits to the Queen-mother's sisters, often known as
+ogresses, found in Dasent, Basile, and in Grimm 88. It is possible, of
+course, that in some cases dim memories of Apuleius have percolated
+down to the folk, as is shown by the name of the hero in Pitre's
+version _Il Re d'Amore_. Kawczynski (Abh. d. Krakauer Akad. 1909, xlv.
+1) declares for the derivation of the whole series of folk-tales from
+Apuleius but against this is the doubt whether this author was at all
+known during the Middle Ages.
+
+But, to prove that the folk-tales were not derived directly or solely
+from the classical romance they, in almost every case, had a series of
+adventures not found there, including the incidents, Obstacles to
+Pursuit, False Bride, and Sale of Bed. Now these incidents really
+belong to another formula, that of the Master-Maid, in which an ogre's
+or giant's daughter, helps the hero to perform tasks, flees away with
+him, is pursued by the ogre, loses her beloved through an Oblivion
+Kiss and has to win him again from his False Bride by purchasing the
+right of spending three nights with him. These incidents come in
+logically in the Master-Maid formula but are dragged in without real
+relevance into Cupid and Psyche; yet they occur as early as Basile
+where there is a dim reminiscence of the Oblivion Kiss. In
+reconstructing the formula I have therefore omitted these incidents,
+reserving them for their proper place (see Master-Maid).
+
+Cupid and Psyche is of special interest to the student of the
+folk-tale since it is a means of testing the mythological, the
+anthropological, and the Indian theories of its origin. The
+mythological interpretation is nowadays so discredited that it is
+needless to discuss it, especially as we have seen that the
+mythological names given by Apuleius are only dragged in perforce. The
+anthropological explanation, given most fully by Andrew Lang in his
+admirable introduction to Addington's translation of Apuleius in the
+_Bibliotheque de Carabas_, gives savage parallels from all quarters of
+the globe to the seven chief incidents making up the tale, but leaves
+altogether out of account the artistic concatenation of the incidents
+in the tale itself and does not consider the later complications of
+the European folk-tales connected with it. M. Cosquin and others bring
+in the Vedic myth of Urvasi and Pururavas, but we have seen reason to
+reject the notion that the tale is, in its essence, mythological, and
+therefore need not consider its relation to Indian mythology. Cosquin,
+however, gives reference to the tale of Tulisa taken down from a
+washerwoman of Benares in 1833 (_Asiatic Journal_, new series, vol.
+2), which has the invisible husband and the breaking of taboo, the
+jealous mother-in-law, and the tasks. This is indeed a close
+parallelism sufficient to raise the general question of relation
+between the Indian and the European folk-tale. But the earlier
+existence of the tale in Apuleius and Basile would give the preference
+to European influence on India rather than _vice versa_.
+
+I should add that I have followed Apuleius in giving a symbolic name
+to the heroine of the tale, in order to suggest its relation to the
+classical folk-tale of Cupid and Psyche, but not of course to indicate
+that it is in any sense mythological. The Descent-to-hell incident,
+which is found both in the classical and in the modern European forms
+and therefore in my reconstruction is only, after all, the application
+of a common form to the notion of difficult Tasks, which is of the
+essence of the story.
+
+
+XVIII. THE MASTER-MAID
+
+This is one of the oldest and widest spread tales of the world, and
+the resultant formula was, therefore, more than usually difficult to
+reconstruct. The essence of the tale consists in the Menial
+Hero--Three Tasks--Master-Maid Help--Obstacles to Pursuit--Oblivion
+Kiss--False Bride--Sale of Bed--Happy Marriage. In essentials this is
+the story of Jason and Medea, where we have the Tasks, the Pursuit,
+and the False Bride, though the dramatic genius of the Greeks has
+given a tragic ending to the tale. Lang, in his _Custom and Myth_, pp.
+87-102, has pointed out parallels, not alone in modern folk-tales,
+like Grimm 92, Campbell 2, Dasent 11, and Basile 11, but even in
+Madagascar (_Folk-Lore Journal_, Aug., 1883), and Samoa (Turner 102)
+while the Flight and Obstacles are found in Japan and Zululand. Even
+in America there is the Algonquin form of the Tasks (School-craft,
+Algic Researches ii., 94-104), and the Flight is given in an
+interesting article in the _Century Magazine_, 1884. According to
+Lang's general views, he seems to regard these incidents as being
+universally human and having no affiliation with one another, though
+he entitles his essay, "A Far Travelled Tale."
+
+The modern Folk-Tales, however, make it practically impossible that
+these at least could have arisen independently. Many of them have an
+introductory set of incidents, Jephtha-Vow, Herd-Boy, Shepherd-Boy,
+Prince; this I have adopted in my version. But besides this the Tasks
+are often identical, Cleaning Stable (Dasent, Campbell), Finger-Ladder
+(Campbell, trace in Cosquin 32), Building Castle (Grimm 113, Hahn 54);
+the Oblivion Kiss occurs in Scotland, Germany, Spain, Tyrol, Tuscany,
+Sicily, and Rome, all in connection with similar stories.
+
+The tale has been especially popular in Celtdom. I have enumerated no
+less than fourteen versions in my notes on the "Battle of the Birds"
+(_Celtic Fairy Tales_, p. 265). There we have the Obstacles to Pursuit
+mainly in the form of forest, mountain, and river, which the late Mr.
+Alfred Nutt pointed out to be the natural boundaries of the
+Nether-World in Teutonic Paganism. It is, therefore, possible that our
+story has been "contaminated" or influenced by the notion of the
+"Descent to Hell."
+
+Here, as in the parallel case of Cupid and Psyche, we find a classical
+story, with many of the incidents clearly reproduced in modern
+Folk-Tales, while others have been inserted to make the tale longer or
+more of the folk-tale character.
+
+At the same time the story as a _whole_ is found spread from America
+to Samoa, from India to Scotland, with indubitable signs of being the
+same story dressed up according to local requirements. The Master-Maid
+is, accordingly, one of the most instructive of all folk-tales, from
+the point of view of the problem of diffusion.
+
+
+XIX. A VISITOR FROM PARADISE
+
+This droll, in its two parts, occurs throughout Europe as has been
+shown by Cosquin in his elaborate Notes to No. 22. The Visitor from
+Paradise, for example, occurs in Brittany, Germany, Norway, and
+Sweden, England, Roumania, Tyrol, and Ireland. In some of the versions
+the silly wife gives some household treasure to a passer-by because
+her husband had said that he was keeping this for Christmas, for
+Easter, or for "Hereafterthis" and the Visitor claims it in that name.
+(See _More English Fairy Tales_.) The idea also occurs in the
+literature of jests in Pauli, 1519, Hans Sachs, and in _Trésor du
+Ridicule_, Paris, 1644. Cosquin has also traced it to Ceylon,
+_Orientalist_, 1884, p. 62.
+
+The adventure of the door and the robbers is equally widely spread in
+Normandy, Germany, Austria, Bosnia, Rome, Catalonia, and Sicily.
+(Gonz., i., 251-2.) It forms part of the tale of "Mr. Vinegar" in
+_English Fairy Tales_. The two adventures are, however, rarely
+combined; Cosquin knows of only two instances. I have, however,
+ventured to combine them here instead of making two separate tales of
+them.
+
+In telling the story one has to slur over the pronunciation of
+"Paradise," making the last vowel short, so as to explain the
+misunderstanding about "Paris." I have retained the Paris _motif_ as
+all through the Middle Ages, wayfarers from and to Paris (wandering
+scholars or clerics) would be familiar sights to the peasantry
+throughout Europe.
+
+Bolte gives in full (ii., 441-6) a Latin poem by Wickram in 1509
+entitled, "De Barta et marito eius per studentem Parisiensem
+subtiliter deceptis," which is practically identical with the early
+part of our story and has this misunderstanding about Paris and
+Paradise. It accordingly occurs in most of the German books of Drolls
+as those by Bebel and Pauli, and it is possible that the folk
+versions were derived from this, though they stretch as far as Cairo
+and North India. See Clouston, _Book of Noodles_, pp. 205, 214. In
+some of the folk-tales, there is an introduction in which the Foolish
+Wife sells three cows, but keeps one of the three as a pledge.
+Thereupon her husband leaves her until he can find any one as silly,
+which he does by posing as a Visitor from Paradise. This is more
+suitable for an introduction for "The Three Sillies."
+
+
+XX. INSIDE AGAIN
+
+This story is one of the most interesting in the study of the popular
+diffusion of tales, and I therefore give it here though I have given
+an excellent version from Temple and Steel in _Indian Fairy Tales_,
+ix., "The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal," and have there
+discussed the original form. Its interest, from the point of view of
+diffusion, lies in the fact that it occurs in India, both early (see
+Benfey, i., 117) and late (Temple, 12, Frere, 14), in Greece, both
+classical (Æsopic fable of the serpent in the bosom) and modern (Hahn,
+87, Schmidt, p. 3), and in the earliest mediæval collection of popular
+tales by Petrus Alfonsi (_Disciplina clericalis_, vii.), as well as in
+the Reynard cycle. Besides these quasi-literary sources ranging over
+more than two thousand years, there are innumerable folk-versions
+collected in the last century and ranging from Burmah (Semeaton, _The
+Karens_, 128) to America (Harris, _Uncle Remus_, 86). These are all
+enumerated by Professor Krohn in an elaborate dissertation, "Mann und
+Fuchs" (Helsingfors, 1891). In essentials the trick by which the
+fisherman gets the djin inside the bottle again, in the first story
+within the frame of the _Arabian Nights_ (adapted so admirably by Mr.
+Anstey in his _Brass Bottle_), is practically the same device. Richard
+I. is said, by Matthew Paris (ed. Luard, ii., 413-16), to have told
+the nobles of England, after his return from captivity in the East, a
+similar apologue proving the innate ingratitude of man. This is
+derived from the Karma Jataka, which was possibly the ultimate source
+of the whole series of tales.
+
+Amid all these hundred variants there is one common idea, that of the
+ingratitude of a rescued animal (crocodile, snake, tiger, etc.), which
+is thwarted by its being placed back in the situation from which it
+was rescued. In some cases the bystander who restores equilibrium is
+alone; in most instances there are three of them; the first two having
+suffered from man's ingratitude see no reason for interfering. This is
+the "common form" which I have adopted in my version. In India the
+sufferer from ingratitude is sometimes a tree (a mulberry tree, in
+_Indian Fairy Tales_), but the European versions prefer horses or
+dogs.
+
+Now it is obvious that such an artificial apologue on man's
+ingratitude could not have been invented twice for that particular
+purpose; and thus the hundred different versions (to which Dr. Bolte
+could probably add another century) must all, in the last resort, have
+emanated from a single source. When and where that original was
+concocted is one of the most interesting problems of folk-tale
+diffusion; the moralizing tendency of the tale, the animistic note
+underlying it, all point to India, where we find it in the Bidpai
+literature before the Christian era and current among the folk at the
+present day. The case for Indian origin is strongest for drolls of
+this kind.
+
+I may add that the ingratitude of the man towards the fox at the end
+is not so universal a tail piece to the story as the rest of it, and
+is ultimately derived from the Reynard cycle, in which I have also
+introduced it (see "Bruin and Reynard").
+
+But it occurs in many of the variants and comes in so appropriately
+that I thought it desirable to add it also here. The substitution of
+a dog for something else desired also occurs in the story of the
+Hobyahs in _More English Fairy Tales_, where Mr. Batten's released dog
+is so fierce (p. 125) that it drives one of the Hobyahs over on to the
+next page belonging to altogether another story.
+
+
+XXI. JOHN THE TRUE
+
+I have followed Bolte's formula "Anmerkungen" 45, keeping however as
+far as possible to the alternatives nearest to Basile, iv., 9, and
+where that fails making use of the Grimms' "Faithful John," No. 6, one
+of their best told tales. The story is popular in Italy where Crane,
+344, refers to six other versions. It is also found in Greece (Hahn
+29), and Roumania (Schott, p. 144), and indeed throughout the east of
+Europe. Traces of it in British Isles are but slight.
+
+In India, however, there are a number of very close parallels (Day,
+17-52; Knowles, 421-41; Frere, 98; and Somadeva; edit. Tawney, i.,
+519, ii., 251, which contains the similar story of Vivara the True);
+Benfey, i., 417, draws attention to other Oriental traits in the story
+and aptly compares the half-marble figure of the King of the Black
+Islands in the Arabian Nights. The probabilities of an Indian origin
+for this formula are rendered greater by the early age of the
+Pantschatantra and Somadeva parallels.
+
+On the other hand the sacrifice of the children for the faithful
+servant has its closest parallel in the old French romance of Amis and
+Amilun, where Amis smears Amilun with the blood of his child to cure
+him of leprosy. The analogy is so close as almost to force the
+assumption of derivation. Koehler accordingly in his _Aufsaetze_,
+1894, pp. 24-35, regards the tale as a development of the Indian story
+influenced by the romance of Amis.
+
+
+XXII. JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE
+
+I have followed Bolte's formula s. v. Hansel and Gretel, 15, i., 115,
+though with some misgivings. Very few of his variants have his section
+F, which he divides into three variants: F 1. Ducks or angels carry
+the children over the stream. F 2. Or they throw out obstacles to
+pursuit. F 3. Or the witch drinks up the stream and bursts. F 2 is
+obviously "contaminated" by the similar incident in the Master Maid,
+and the existence of such alternatives indicates, to my mind, an
+absence of a consistent tradition as to the ending of the story, which
+obviously ended with the baking of the witch in the oven. I have
+combined, in my ending F 1 and F 2, the former from the Grimms'
+"Hansel and Gretel"; I have also adapted their title, with a
+reminiscence of Sir James Barrie.
+
+The predicament of the farmer must have often really occurred in the
+Middle Ages when famine was the rule rather than the exception; and
+the decision to "expose" the children recalls the general practice in
+ancient Greece and Rome and in Arabia. A touch of comedy, however, is
+given to this grim beginning of our tale by the house made of cookies
+and sweetmeats, probably derived from the myth of a Schlarafenland of
+the Germans and similar imaginations of the Celts (see _More Celtic
+Fairy Tales_).
+
+The beginning of the tale occurs early in Basile, v., 8, "Nennillo and
+Nennila," in which the three kings' children find their way home twice
+by similar devices, but at the third time scatter peas, which the
+birds eat up. Perrault has the same beginning in his "Petit Poucet,"
+which has been Englished as "Hop o' my Thumb," who shares some of the
+adventures of Tom Thumb, as well as of the valiant Tailor. Lang has an
+interesting but, as usual, inconclusive discussion of the incidents of
+our tale in his Perrault civ.-cxi., and finds many of the incidents
+among the Kaffirs, Zulus, and other savage tribes, but scarcely the
+whole set of incidents from A to F, and that is what we want to find
+in studying the story. Dr. Bolte finds several instances where the
+full formula still exists in popular tradition. It is surely easiest
+to assume that they were once brought together by a folk artist whose
+bright little tale has spread among various folks, with the
+alterations suggested by the divergent fancy of the different folk
+minds.
+
+
+XXIII. CLEVER LASS
+
+The Clever Lass is of exceptional interest to the student of the
+Folk-Tale because of its exceptionally wide spread throughout Europe
+and Asia, and also because it is one of those tales which have been
+made the basis of the theory of the Eastern origin of all Folk-Tales.
+Bolte, in his elaborate monograph on the formula ("_Anmerkungen_,"
+ii., 349-73), enumerates no less than eighty-six variants, twelve in
+Germany, six in other Teutonic lands, thirteen in Romance countries,
+no less than thirty-seven in Slavonic dialects, seven in Finnish,
+Hungarian and Tartar, six in the Semitic tongues, and also five in
+India, though there the parallelism is only partial. But in the
+European variants the parallels are so close and the riddles answered
+by the Clever Lass are in so many cases identical, and the order of
+incidents is so uniform that none can doubt the practical identity of
+the story throughout the Western area. There occurs some variation in
+the opening which, at times, takes the form of the father of the
+Clever Girl finding a golden mortar and giving it to the King, against
+the advice of his daughter who foresees that the monarch will demand
+the accompanying pestle. This seems however to be confined to the
+Teutonic lands or those in immediate cultural connection with them.
+The riddles about strongest, richest, most beautiful, form the opening
+elsewhere, and I have therefore chosen this alternative. The
+variations, both in questions and answers, are many, as is perhaps
+natural considering the popularity of the riddle in the folk mind,
+which would make it easy for a story-teller to make changes.
+
+The King or Prince, in some of the variants, discovers the cleverness
+of the farmer's daughter on a visit to the farmer, when he elaborately
+carves and divides a chicken on a method which the Clever Lass
+discerns. This however does not occur so frequently except in Italy,
+and I have therefore omitted it. The discovery of the theft by the
+King's messenger is much more widely spread. (See Crane, 382, and
+compare "Gobborn Seer," in _More English Fairy Tales_.)
+
+The Grimms, in their notes, point to a remarkable parallel in the Saga
+of Aslaug, the daughter of Brunhild and Sigurd. Here the King Ragnar
+demands that Aslaug should come to him naked yet clothed, eating yet
+not eating, not alone but without companion. She uses the fish-net as
+in the Folk-Tale, bites into an onion, and takes her dog along with
+her. From the last incident some of the Folk-Tales have possibly taken
+the awkward attitude of limping along with one of her feet on the back
+of a dog. But the first incident, being dragged along in a fish-net,
+is so unlikely to occur to anybody's mind without prompting, that one
+cannot help agreeing with the Grimms that the incident was taken into
+the Folk-Tale from the Saga, or that both were derived from a common
+source. On the whole subject of the curious ride, R. Kohler has an
+elaborate treatment in his _Gesammelte Schriften_, i., 446-56.
+
+The attraction of the riddle for the folk mind is well known, and
+before the spread of cards appears to have been one of the chief forms
+of gambling in which even life was staked, as in the case of Samson or
+the Sphinx. In the Folk-Tale it often occurs in the form of the
+Riddle-Bride-Wager, in which a princess is married to him that can
+guess some elaborate conundrum. The first two of Child's Ballads deal
+with similar riddles, and his notes are a mine of erudition on the
+subject: on the Clever Lass herself see his elaborate treatment,
+_English Ballads_, i., 485 _seq._
+
+It is perhaps worthy of note that the questions as to the strongest,
+most beautiful, and richest occur in Plutarch's Symposium, 152 a, and
+it is a striking coincidence that, in the same treatise, 151 b, occurs
+another practical riddle, how to drink up the ocean, which occurs in
+several variants of the Clever Lass. But there is no evidence of any
+story connection between the two riddles in Plutarch, and one can
+easily imagine this sort of verbal amusement spreading from the
+learned to the folk.
+
+The plan by which the Clever Lass becomes reconciled to the King, by
+carrying off what is dearest to her, is found in the Midrash probably
+as early as the eighth century. A still more remarkable parallel is
+that of the True Wives of Weinsberg who, when that town was invested,
+were allowed by the besiegers to carry off with them whatever they
+liked best. When the town gate was opened they tottered forth, each of
+them carrying her husband on her shoulders. But whether the incident
+ever really occurred, and if it occurred, whether the ruse was
+suggested by the Folk-Tale, cannot now be ascertained.
+
+Benfey, in an elaborate dissertation, first communicated to "Ausland"
+in 1859, but now included in his _Kleinere Schriften_, ii., 156-223,
+argues for the Eastern origin of the whole cycle, which he traces back
+to the "Seventy Tales of the Parrot" (Suka Saptati) probably as early
+as the sixth century. Here the vizier Sakatala of the King Nanda is
+released from prison in order to determine which of two identical
+horses is mare and which is foal, and which part of a truncated log is
+root or branch. Benfey traces this and similar riddlesome difficulties
+to a good deal of Eastern literature in Tibet, Mongolia and Persia,
+and Arabia. But he fails to find any very exact parallels in the
+European area which, at that time, was very little explored. He finds
+the nearest parallel in Wuk, No. 25, but this is by no means a full
+variant of the other European tales and may have even been
+"contaminated" from the East. Benfey notices the Saga parallel but
+goes so far as even to claim this as being influenced by Eastern
+stories. Since his time a much closer parallel has been found in
+Kashmir by Knowles' _Folk Tales of Kashmir_, pages 484-90, repeated in
+_Indian Fairy Tales_, No. xxiv., "Why the Fish Laughed." But the
+parallelism here extends only to the cleverness of the girl and the
+ingenuity of her answers to the riddles, not to the actual plot of the
+story which is so uniform in Europe. Altogether we must reject
+Benfey's contention, at any rate for this particular story.
+
+
+XXIV. THUMBKIN
+
+I have followed, for the most part, Bolte's reconstruction, which
+practically consists of a combination of Grimm, 37 and 45. But in
+combining the two I have found it necessary to omit sections D and E
+of Bolte's formula which form the beginning of Grimm, 45, "Thumbkin as
+Journeyman."
+
+The notion of a baby the size of a doll might be regarded as
+"universally human"; even the Greeks knew of manikins no bigger than
+their thumbs and weighing not more than an obolus (Athenæus, xii.,
+77); there is an epigram of the same subject in the Greek Anthology,
+ii., 350. But the particular adventures of Thumbkin are so
+consistently identical throughout Europe, especially with regard to
+the adventures in the cow's stomach, that it is impossible to consider
+the stories as independent. Cosquin, 53, has more difficulty than
+usual in finding real parallels in the Orient. In England, of course,
+Thumbkin is known as Tom Thumb (see _English Fairy Tales_). In the
+days when mythological explanations of folk-tales were popular, Gaston
+Paris, in a special monograph ("Petit Poucet," Paris 1875) tried to
+prove that Tom Thumb was a stellar hero because his French name was
+given to the smallest star in the Great Bear. But it is more likely
+that the name came from the tale than the tale from the star.
+
+According to Gaston Paris, the chief variants known to him were
+Teutonic and Slav. Those of the Roumanians, Albanians, and Greeks were
+derived from the Slavs. He concludes that the French form must have
+been borrowed from the Germans, and declares that it is not found in
+Italy or Spain, but Cosquin, ii., gives Basque and Catalan variants,
+as well as a Portuguese one, and Crane gives a Tuscan variant, 242,
+with other occurrences in Italy in note 3, p. 372. This only shows the
+danger of deciding questions of origin on an imperfect induction.
+
+The opening is not found in Grimm; I have taken it from Andrews; for
+which an excellent parallel is given in Crane, lxxvii., "Little
+Chick-pea." A similar beginning occurs in Hahn, 56, "Pepper-corn."
+
+
+XXV. SNOWWHITE
+
+Snowwhite is of special interest to the students of the folk-tale as
+being obviously a late product combining many _motifs_ from different,
+more primitive, or at least earlier formulæ. E. Boeklen, in his
+_Schneewitchen Studien_, I, Leipzig 1910, suggests influence by Hansel
+and Gretel; The Seven Ravens; The Sleeping Beauty; The Maiden without
+Hands; One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes; False Bride, etc.; and Bolte,
+i., 453, appears to agree with him. Certainly almost every one of the
+incidents can be paralleled in other sets of folk-tales. The
+combination "white as snow," "red as blood," "black as ebony," has
+already been given in the present volume (see p. 173). Bringing back
+an animal's heart instead of the proposed victim's is common form as
+early as the Book of Genesis; and the trial of the three beds is
+familiar to English children in Southey's "Three Bears." It would seem
+that a story something like "Snowwhite" was known in Shakespeare's
+time, as there appears to be a reference to it in the main plot of
+"Cymbeline" (see _Germania_, ix., 458).
+
+The form I have given to the formula follows very closely that of the
+Grimms' 53. It is one of their best stories and occurs widely spread
+throughout Germany. Whether that implies original composition in
+Central Europe cannot at present be determined, but it certainly looks
+that way. I have, however, omitted Bolte's F referring to the
+punishment of the Queen, which is wanting in the majority of the
+variants. No editor of a text would under similar circumstances take
+account of so rare a variant.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF INCIDENTS
+
+
+I give in the following list the chief incidents that occur in the
+preceding tales, using for the most part the nomenclature used in the
+notes or in the list of incidents attached to my paper on "The Problem
+of Diffusion" in the _Transactions of the International Folk-Lore
+Congress_, 1892, pp. 87-98.
+
+ N. B. Incidents in Drolls are placed in italics. In some few
+ cases, the incidents are referred to only in the notes.
+
+
+Acquisition Task, xii.
+
+Animal Aid, xi., xvii.
+
+Apple Speaking, xviii.
+
+
+Bean Transformation, xxiv.
+
+Bird Aid, i.
+
+Bird Election, viii.
+
+Bird Prophecy, viii., xxi.
+
+Bird Throwing, x.
+
+Blood Resuscitation, xvi.
+
+Bread Crumb Track, xxii.
+
+Bride Quest, xii.
+
+
+Captured Bride, xii., xxi.
+
+_Casting Sheep's Eyes_, xv.
+
+Castle Building Task, xviii.
+
+_Cheese Squeezing_, x.
+
+Children Sacrifice, xvi.
+
+Cleansing Stable Task, xviii.
+
+_Cow's Stomach Refuge_, xxiv.
+
+Cure by Fruit, ix.
+
+
+Descent to Hell, xvii., xviii.
+
+Dogs in Bag, vi., xx.
+
+_Door Dropping_, xix.
+
+Dragon Slayer, xxi.
+
+Dress Rhyme, i.
+
+
+Enclosure in Bag, vi.
+
+Envious Sisters, i., vii.
+
+Exchange Series, ii.
+
+Exposed Hero, viii., xxii.
+
+External Soul, iii.
+
+
+Fairy Godmother, i.
+
+_False Bathing_, xi.
+
+False Bride, xviii.
+
+_False Sale_, xxiv.
+
+Feather Dress, vii.
+
+Feet Rhyme, i.
+
+Finger Ladder Task, xviii.
+
+_Flea Bite Blows_, x.
+
+Flight from Ogre, xviii.
+
+Forbidden Chamber, xii.
+
+_Fox in Briar Bush_, vi.
+
+_Fox in Fish-cart_, vi.
+
+
+_Giants Quarrelling_, x.
+
+_Girl in Bag_, ii.
+
+
+Helpful Animals, i.
+
+Honey Trap, i.
+
+_Horse from Stable Theft_, xvi.
+
+_Horse's Ear Guide_, xxiv.
+
+
+_Iced Bear's Tail_, vi.
+
+_Inside Again_, xx.
+
+
+Jealous Brother-in-law, xvii.
+
+Jealous Mother-in-law, xvii., xxv.
+
+Jephtha Vow, xviii.
+
+
+Language of Animals, viii.
+
+Life Token, iii., vii.
+
+_Lollipop House_, xxii.
+
+Lost Shoe, i.
+
+Love at Distance, xxi.
+
+
+_Magic Cudgel_, ix.
+
+Magic Dress, i.
+
+Magic Purse, ix.
+
+Magical Weapons, xii.
+
+Menial Hero, xviii.
+
+Menial Heroine, i.
+
+Moon on Forehead, vii.
+
+Mutilated Foot, i.
+
+
+Nobility Test, xi.
+
+
+Oblivion Kiss, xviii.
+
+Obstacle Pursuit, xii., xviii., xxii.
+
+Ogre Transformation, xi.
+
+Overheard Boasting, vii.
+
+
+_Paradise Visitor_, xix.
+
+Pebble Track, xxii.
+
+_Planting Pigs' Tails_, xv.
+
+Poisoned Comb, xxv.
+
+Poisoned Cup, xvi.
+
+Poisoned Half-apple, xxv.
+
+Pride before Fall, xiv.
+
+_Priest in Bag Ride_, xvi.
+
+Prince Rescue, xxv.
+
+Punishment for Curiosity, xvii.
+
+_Purse or Life_, xvi.
+
+Pursuit Rhyme, i.
+
+
+Quarrel of Limbs, vi.
+
+Quest Tasks, vii.
+
+
+_Rage Wager_, xv.
+
+Recognition Test, xii.
+
+Rescue from Dragon, iii.
+
+
+Sale of Bed, xviii.
+
+_Scissors_, iv.
+
+Seven Bens and Seven Glens, xii.
+
+Sight Taboo, xvii.
+
+_Sheet off Bed Theft_, xvi.
+
+Shoe Marriage Test, i.
+
+Snow-white, Blood-red, xxv.
+
+Speech Taboo, vii.
+
+_Stick Finger_, xxii.
+
+Substituted Children, vii.
+
+Substituted Heart, vii., xxv.
+
+Supernatural birth, iii.
+
+Swan Maidens, xii.
+
+
+Thankful Animals, xii., xiii.
+
+_Thief Apprentice_, xvi.
+
+Three Beds Trial, xxv.
+
+_Thumb Bung_, xvi.
+
+_Thumbkin_, xxiv.
+
+_Top-off, Half-gone, All-gone_, vi.
+
+Transformation by Fruit, ix.
+
+Tree Rhyme, i.
+
+Turned to Stone, iii., xxi.
+
+
+Ungrateful Animal, xx.
+
+_Unicorn Captured_, x.
+
+Unseen Bridegroom, xvii.
+
+
+_Visitor from Paradise_, xix.
+
+
+_Washing Horses within_, xv.
+
+_Wolf Caught in Hole_, xxiv.
+
+
+_X at a Blow_, x.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+A Staircase of Stories
+
+Chosen by
+
+Louey Chisholm
+
+and
+
+Amy Steedman
+
+_Thick Handsome 8^o, 31 Full-page Illustrations in Color 41 in Black
+and White. 540 Pages. 64 Tales_
+
+The appeal is to children between the ages of four and fourteen, and
+the aim, to concentrate solely on what it is believed children will
+most enjoy. There is a gradual ascent in difficulty as the pages are
+turned--hence the title. This thick handsome book will make a solid
+and delightful foundation to a child's library.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Old Favorites
+
+
+Forty Famous Fairy Tales
+
+Jack and the Beanstalk--The Three Dwarfs--The Six Swans--The Sleeping
+Beauty--Beauty and the Beast--Blue Beard--Tom Thumb---Snowdrop--Jack
+the Giant-Killer--Little Red Riding Hood, and many others. 400 pages.
+14 full-page illustrations. Wrapper in color.
+
+
+Two and Four Footed Friends
+
+Stories by Anna Sewell, H. Rider Haggard, Bret Harte, Ernest
+Ingersoll, Charles Dudley Warner, Hezekiah Butterworth, and others.
+382 pages. 17 full-page illustrations. Decorative wrapper.
+
+
+Stories Grandmother Knew
+
+Little Merchants--Three Cakes--Suspicious Jackdaw--Lazy
+Lawrence--Grand Feast--Mad Bull--Birthday Present--Preparing for a
+Ride, and others. 400 pages. 14 full-page illustrations. Decorative
+wrapper.
+
+
+A Little Lame Prince
+
+This little story of "the most beautiful prince that ever was born,"
+and of his good friends, the fairy god-mother, the magpie, and many
+other equally engaging creatures, has now become a classic among tales
+for children. 150 pages. Fully illustrated. Handsome Wrapper.
+
+
+Alice's Adventures in Wonderland _and_ Through the Looking Glass and
+What Alice Found There
+
+By Lewis Carroll
+
+Alice's adventures, and the friends she made among the preposterous
+and impossible creatures, are now part of the mental furniture of
+every child, and of most children of an older growth as well.
+
+The two preceding stories are also printed separately.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Injun Babies
+
+By
+
+Maynard Dixon
+
+
+These stories of little red men and women have the flavor of
+actuality, with all the wonder and strangeness that children demand.
+The background of the Western plains when Injun babies lived in tepees
+made of buffalo skins is a new one for children's stories; the
+adventures of the little Indians with animals and their simple life of
+every day make the collection a unique one for young readers of today.
+The book is charmingly illustrated with drawings by the author.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Europa's Fairy Book, by Joseph Jacobs
+
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