The Red Fairy Book - Andrew Lang (best novels for beginners TXT) 📗

to the bottom, and the third head came up.

 

`Kiss me, girl!’ said the head.

 

`As if I would kiss your ugly mouth!’ said the girl.

 

So again the heads talked together about what they should do

for this girl who was so ill-tempered and full of her own importance,

and they agreed that she should have a nose that was four ells

long, and a jaw that was three ells, and a fir bush in the middle of

her forehead, and every time she spoke ashes should fall from her

mouth.

 

When she came back to the cottage door with her pails, she

called to her mother who was inside, `Open the door!’

 

`Open the door yourself, my own dear child!’ said the mother.

 

`I can’t get near, because of my nose,’ said the daughter.

 

When the mother came and saw her you may imagine what a

state of mind she was in, and how she screamed and lamented, but

neither the nose nor the jaw grew any the less for that.

 

Now the brother, who was in service in the King’s palace, had

taken a portrait of his sister, and he had carried the picture away

with him, and every morning and evening he knelt down before it

and prayed for his sister, so dearly did he love her.

 

The other stable-boys had heard him doing this, so they peeped

through the keyhole into his room, and saw that he was kneeling

there before a picture; so they told everyone that every morning

and evening the youth knelt down and prayed to an idol which he

had; and at last they went to the King himself, and begged that he

too would peep through the keyhole, and see for himself what the

youth did. At first the King would not believe this, but after a

long, long time, they prevailed with him, and he crept on tip-toe

to the door, peeped through, and saw the youth on his knees, with

his hands clasped together before a picture which was hanging on

the wall.

 

`Open the door!’ cried the King, but the youth did not

hear.

 

So the King called to him again, but the youth was praying so

fervently that he did not hear him this time either.

 

`Open the door, I say!’ cried the King again. `It is I! I want

to come in.’

 

So the youth sprang to the door and unlocked it, but in his

haste he forgot to hide the picture.

 

When the King entered and saw it, he stood still as if he were

in fetters, and could not stir from the spot, for the picture seemed

to him so beautiful.

 

`There is nowhere on earth so beautiful a woman as this!’ said

the King.

 

But the youth told him that she was his sister, and that he had

painted her, and that if she was not prettier than the picture she

was at all events not uglier.

 

`Well, if she is as beautiful as that, I will have her for my

Queen,’ said the King, and he commanded the youth to go home

and fetch her without a moment’s delay, and to lose no time in

coming back. The youth promised to make all the haste he could,

and set forth from the King’s palace.

 

When the brother arrived at home to fetch his sister, her

stepmother and stepsister would go too. So they all set out together,

and the man’s daughter took with her a casket in which she kept

her gold, and a dog which was called Little Snow. These two

things were all that she had inherited from her mother. When

they had travelled for some time they had to cross the sea, and the

brother sat down at the helm, and the mother and the two half-sisters went to the fore-part of the vessel, and they sailed a long,

long way. At last they came in sight of land.

 

`Look at that white strand there; that is where we shall land,’

said the brother, pointing across the sea.

 

`What is my brother saying?’ inquired the man’s daughter.

 

`He says that you are to throw your casket out into the sea,’

answered the stepmother.

 

`Well, if my brother says so, I must do it,’ said the man’s

daughter, and she flung her casket into the sea.

 

When they had sailed for some time longer, the brother once

more pointed over the sea. `There you may see the palace to

which we are bound,’ said he.

 

`What is my brother saying?’ asked the man’s daughter.

 

`Now he says that you are to throw your dog into the sea,’

answered the stepmother.

 

The man’s daughter wept, and was sorely troubled, for Little

Snow was the dearest thing she had on earth, but at last she threw

him overboard.

 

`If my brother says that, I must do it, but Heaven knows how

unwilling I am to throw thee out, Little Snow!’ said she.

 

So they sailed onwards a long way farther.

 

`There may’st thou see the King coming out to meet thee,’ said

the brother, pointing to the seashore.

 

`What is my brother saying?’ asked his sister again.

 

`Now he says that you are to make haste and throw yourself

overboard,’ answered the stepmother.

 

She wept and she wailed, but as her brother had said that, she

thought she must do it; so she leaped into the sea.

 

But when they arrived at the palace, and the King beheld the ugly

bride with a nose that was four ells long, a jaw that was three ells, and

a forehead that had a bush in the middle of it, he was quite terrified;

but the wedding feast was all prepared, as regarded brewing and

baking, and all the wedding guests were sitting waiting, so, ugly

as she was, the King was forced to take her.

 

But he was very wroth, and none can blame him for that; so he

caused the brother to be thrown into a pit full of snakes.

 

On the first Thursday night after this, a beautiful maiden

came into the kitchen of the palace, and begged the kitchen-maid,

who slept there, to lend her a brush. She begged very prettily,

and got it, and then she brushed her hair, and the gold dropped

from it.

 

A little dog was with her, and she said to it, `Go out, Little

Snow, and see if it will soon be day!’

 

This she said thrice, and the third time that she sent out the

dog to see, it was very near dawn. Then she was forced to depart,

but as she went she said:

 

`Out on thee, ugly Bushy Bride,

Sleeping so soft by the young King’s side,

On sand and stones my bed I make,

And my brother sleeps with the cold snake,

Unpitied and unwept.’

 

I shall come twice more, and then never again,’ said she.

 

In the morning the kitchen-maid related what she had seen and

heard, and the King said that next Thursday night he himself

would watch in the kitchen and see if this were true, and when it

had begun to grow dark he went out into the kitchen to the girl.

But though he rubbed his eyes and did everything he could to keep

himself awake it was all in vain, for the Bushy Bride crooned and

sang till his eyes were fast closed, and when the beautiful young

maiden came he was sound asleep and snoring.

 

This time also, as before, she borrowed a brush and brushed her

hair with it, and the gold dropped down as she did it; and again

she sent the dog out three times, and when day dawned she

departed, but as she was going she said as she had said before, `I

shall come once more, and then never again.’

 

On the third Thursday night the King once more insisted on

keeping watch. Then he set two men to hold him; each of them

was to take an arm, and shake him and jerk him by the arm

whenever he seemed to be going to fall asleep; and he set two men

to watch his Bushy Bride. But as the night wore on the Bushy

Bride again began to croon and to sing, so that his eyes began to

close and his head to droop on one side. Then came the lovely

maiden, and got the brush and brushed her hair till the gold dropped

from it, and then she sent her Little Snow out to see if it would

soon be day, and this she did three times. The third time it was

just beginning to grow light, and then she said:

 

`Out on thee, ugly Bushy Bride,

Sleeping so soft by the young King’s side,

On sand and stones my bed I make,

And my brother sleeps with the cold snake,

Unpitied and unwept.’

 

`Now I shall never come again,’ she said, and then she turned to go.

But the two men who were holding the King by the arms seized his

hands and forced a knife into his grasp, and then made him cut

her little finger just enough to make it bleed.

 

Thus the true bride was freed. The King then awoke, and she

told him all that had taken place, and how her stepmother and

stepsister had betrayed her. Then the brother was at once taken

out of the snake-pit—the snakes had never touched him—and the

stepmother and stepsister were flung down into it instead of him.

 

No one can tell how delighted the King was to get rid of that

hideous Bushy Bride, and get a Queen who was bright and beautiful

as day itself.

 

And now the real wedding was held, and held in such a way

that it was heard of and spoken about all over seven kingdoms.

The King and his bride drove to church, and Little Snow was in

the carriage too. When the blessing was given they went home

again, and after that I saw no more of them.[28]

 

[28] From J. Moe.

SNOWDROP

ONCE upon a time, in the middle of winter when the snow-flakes

were falling like feathers on the earth, a Queen sat at a window

framed in black ebony and sewed. And as she sewed and gazed

out to the white landscape, she pricked her finger with the needle,

and three drops of blood fell on the snow outside, and because the

red showed out so well against the white she thought to herself:

 

`Oh! what wouldn’t I give to have a child as white as snow, as

red as blood, and as black as ebony!’

 

And her wish was granted, for not long after a little daughter

was born to her, with a skin as white as snow, lips and cheeks as

red as blood, and hair as black as ebony. They called her Snowdrop,

and not long after her birth the Queen died.

 

After a year the King married again. His new wife was a

beautiful woman, but so proud and overbearing that she couldn’t

stand any rival to her beauty. She possessed a magic mirror, and

when she used to stand before it gazing at her own reflection and ask:

 

`Mirror, mirror, hanging there,

Who in all the land’s most fair?’

 

it always replied:

 

`You are most fair, my Lady Queen,

None fairer in the land, I ween.’

 

Then she was quite happy, for she knew the mirror always spoke the truth.

 

But Snowdrop was growing prettier and prettier every day, and

when she was seven years old she was as beautiful as