The Red Fairy Book - Andrew Lang (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗
- Author: Andrew Lang
- Performer: -
Book online «The Red Fairy Book - Andrew Lang (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗». Author Andrew Lang
`Are you there again to bring trouble upon me?’ said the young
woman.
She neither spat nor did anything else, but still the witch
changed her into a reindeer, and smuggled her own daughter into
her place as the Prince’s wife. But now the child grew restless
and cried, because it missed its mother’s care. They took it to the
court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying
never ceased.
`What makes the child so restless?’ asked the Prince, and he
went to a wise widow woman to ask her advice.
`Ay, ay, your own wife is not at home,’ said the widow woman;
`she is living like a reindeer in the wood; you have the witch’s
daughter for a wife now, and the witch herself for a mother-in-law.’
`Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood
again?’ asked the Prince.
`Give me the child,’ answered the widow woman. `I’ll take it
with me to-morrow when I go to drive the cows to the wood. I’ll
make a rustling among the birch leaves and a trembling among
the aspens—perhaps the boy will grow quiet when he hears it.’
`Yes, take the child away, take it to the wood with you to quiet
it,’ said the Prince, and led the widow woman into the castle.
`How now? you are going to send the child away to the wood?’
said the witch in a suspicious tone, and tried to interfere.
But the King’s son stood firm by what he had commanded, and
said:
`Carry the child about the wood; perhaps that will pacify it.’
So the widow woman took the child to the wood. She came to
the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there, she began
all at once to sing—
`Little Bright-eyes, little Redskin,
Come nurse the child you bore!
That bloodthirsty monster,
That man-eater grim,
Shall nurse him, shall tend him no more.
They may threaten and force as they will,
He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’
and immediately the reindeer drew near, and nursed and tended
the child the whole day long; but at nightfall it had to follow the
herd, and said to the widow woman:
`Bring me the child to-morrow, and again the following day;
after that I must wander with the herd far away to other lands.’
The following morning the widow woman went back to the
castle to fetch the child. The witch interfered, of course, but the
Prince said:
`Take it, and carry it about in the open air; the boy is quieter
at night, to be sure, when he has been in the wood all day.’
So the widow took the child in her arms, and carried it to the
marsh in the forest. There she sang as on the preceding day—
`Little Bright-eyes, little Redskin,
Come nurse the child you bore!
That bloodthirsty monster,
That man-eater grim,
Shall nurse him, shall tend him no more.
They may threaten and force as they will,
He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’
and immediately the reindeer left the herd and came to the child,
and tended it as on the day before. And so it was that the child
throve, till not a finer boy was to be seen anywhere. But the
King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he said to
the widow woman:
`Is there no way of changing the reindeer into a human being
again?’
`I don’t rightly know,’ was her answer. `Come to the wood with
me, however; when the woman puts off her reindeer skin I shall
comb her head for her; whilst I am doing so you must burn the skin.’
Thereupon they both went to the wood with the child; scarcely
were they there when the reindeer appeared and nursed the child
as before. Then the widow woman said to the reindeer:
`Since you are going far away to-morrow, and I shall not see
you again, let me comb your head for the last time, as a
remembrance of you.’
Good; the young woman stript off the reindeer skin, and let
the widow woman do as she wished. In the meantime the King’s
son threw the reindeer skin into the fire unobserved.
`What smells of singeing here?’ asked the young woman, and
looking round she saw her own husband. `Woe is me! you have
burnt my skin. Why did you do that?’
`To give you back your human form again.’
`Alack-a-day! I have nothing to cover me now, poor creature
that I am!’ cried the young woman, and transformed herself first
into a distaff, then into a wooden beetle, then into a spindle, and
into all imaginable shapes. But all these shapes the King’s son
went on destroying till she stood before him in human form again.
Alas! wherefore take me home with you again,’ cried the young
woman, `since the witch is sure to eat me up?’
`She will not eat you up,’ answered her husband; and they
started for home with the child.
But when the witch wife saw them she ran away with her
daughter, and if she has not stopped she is running still, though at
a great age. And the Prince, and his wife, and the baby lived
happy ever afterwards.[9]
[9] From the Russo-Karelian.
JACK AND THE BEANSTALK JACK SELLS THE COWONCE upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little
cottage with her only son Jack.
Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and
affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor
woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet,
and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that
there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from starvation
but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, `I am
too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market
for me, and sell her.’
Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as
he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful
beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher
told the boy that they were of great value, and persuaded the silly
lad to sell the cow for these beans.
When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money
she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many
tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother
and son went to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed
gone.
At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden.
`At least,’ he thought, `I will sow the wonderful beans. Mother
says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else;
but I may as well sow them.’
So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground,
and put in the beans.
That day they had very little dinner, and went sadly to bed,
knowing that for the next day there would be none and Jack,
unable to sleep from grief and vexation, got up at day-dawn and
went out into the garden.
What was his amazement to find that the beans had grown up
in the night, and climbed up and up till they covered the high cliff
that sheltered the cottage, and disappeared above it! The stalks
had twined and twisted themselves together till they formed quite
a ladder.
`It would be easy to climb it,’ thought Jack.
And, having thought of the experiment, he at once resolved to
carry it out, for Jack was a good climber. However, after his late
mistake about the cow, he thought he had better consult his mother
first.
WONDERFUL GROWTH OF THE BEANSTALKSo Jack called his mother, and they both gazed in silent wonder
at the Beanstalk, which was not only of great height, but was thick
enough to bear Jack’s weight.
`I wonder where it ends,’ said Jack to his mother; `I think I
will climb up and see.’
His mother wished him not to venture up this strange ladder,
but Jack coaxed her to give her consent to the attempt, for he was
certain there must be something wonderful in the Beanstalk; so at
last she yielded to his wishes.
Jack instantly began to climb, and went up and up on the ladder-like bean till everything he had left behind him—the cottage, the
village, and even the tall church tower—looked quite little, and still
he could not see the top of the Beanstalk.
Jack felt a little tired, and thought for a moment that he would
go back again; but he was a very persevering boy, and he knew
that the way to succeed in anything is not to give up. So after
resting for a moment he went on.
After climbing higher and higher, till he grew afraid to look
down for fear he should be giddy, Jack at last reached the top of
the Beanstalk, and found himself in a beautiful country, finely
wooded, with beautiful meadows covered with sheep. A crystal
stream ran through the pastures; not far from the place where he
had got off the Beanstalk stood a fine, strong castle.
Jack wondered very much that he had never heard of or seen
this castle before; but when he reflected on the subject, he saw that
it was as much separated from the village by the perpendicular
rock on which it stood as if it were in another land.
While Jack was standing looking at the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out of the wood, and advanced towards him.
She wore a pointed cap of quilted red satin turned up with
ermine, her hair streamed loose over her shoulders, and she walked
with a staff. Jack took off his cap and made her a bow.
`If you please, ma’am,’ said he, `is this your house?’
`No,’ said the old lady. `Listen, and I will tell you the story of
that castle.
`Once upon a time there was a noble knight, who lived in this
castle, which is on the borders of Fairyland. He had a fair and
beloved wife and several lovely children: and as his neighbours, the
little people, were very friendly towards him, they bestowed on him
many excellent and precious gifts.
`Rumour whispered of these treasures; and a monstrous giant,
who lived at no great distance, and who was a very wicked being,
resolved to obtain possession of them.
`So he bribed a false servant to let him inside the castle, when
the knight was in bed and asleep, and he killed him as he lay. Then
he went to the part of the castle which was the nursery, and also
killed all the poor little ones he found there.
`Happily for her, the lady was not to be found. She had gone
with her infant son, who was only two or three months old, to visit
her old nurse, who lived in the valley; and she had been detained
all night there by a storm.
`The next morning, as soon as it was light, one of the servants
at the castle, who had managed to escape, came to tell the poor
lady of the sad fate of her husband and her pretty babes. She
could scarcely believe him at first, and was eager at once to go back
and share the fate
Comments (0)