GETTING READY
It was very interesting in the little boy's house the next day, for
the mother was getting ready for the journey and the sisters were
helping. There was food to be cooked and there were clothes to be
washed, and it all made a very pleasant bustle. The little boy was
in the thick of it all. He thought he was helping, though perhaps
the others thought differently. At any rate, he was in a state of
most delightful excitement.
When it grew dark the work was all done, and the little boy went to
the grandmother's room.
"We are all ready, grandmother," he said, "and I have been patient
all the time!"
"Well, well!" said the grandmother. "Surely you deserve a reward,
then. Shall I tell you a story?"
"Oh, dear little grandmother, yes!" cried the little boy. "Will it
be about Reinecke?"
"Not about Reinecke, nor any of the animals you know," said the
grandmother; "it will be about
"THE SEVEN STARS"
Once upon a time there was a King who had a wonderfully beautiful
daughter. But there came a Dragon and stole her away and vanished,
leaving not a trace behind.
So the King called his High Chamberlain and commanded him to go forth
into the world and seek the Princess, and on no account to come back
without her.
The High Chamberlain set out and searched throughout the whole
world, but nowhere could he find the slightest trace of the King's
daughter nor the least clew to her whereabouts. However, an old
woman advised him to go to such-and-such a country and inquire for
the Dragon-mother, for she alone was able to give him information
about the stolen Princess.
And, verily, the High Chamberlain followed this counsel. After most
toilsome wanderings he at last arrived safely at the Dragon-mother's
house and begged her to give him such information as she had as to
the abiding-place of the King's daughter.
The Dragon-mother answered, "My dear friend, stay here over this
night. What God has given us we will share with you--you shall not
suffer hunger in my house. As soon as my sons, the Dragons, return
home from afar I will ask them about the Princess. I have five sons,
each one wiser and cleverer than the other. The first has the power
of stealing anything that he takes a fancy to; he could steal the
calf from the cow or the foal from the mare, and they never observe
it. The second can follow up the trace of any lost object, though it
have been lost for years. The third draws a sure arrow upon anything
that he can see. The fourth can build an impregnable fortress in an
instant, and can hide anything he chooses within it, so that no one
can possibly find it. And the fifth is as bold as a falcon and as swift
as the lightning when there is anything to be overtaken and caught."
While she was speaking, her sons, the Dragons, came home, and the
mother inquired of them if they knew anything of the whereabouts of
the King's lost daughter.
"To be sure," they answered. "She is with a more powerful Dragon than
we. He stole her away from her father, the King, and now keeps her
in one of his castles."
"I adjure you," interrupted the High Chamberlain, "help me to find
her. I may on no account appear before the King and live unless I
bring his daughter with me. My master will not show himself ungrateful
to you."
The Dragons declared themselves quite willing to help him. The second
brother traced up the scent, and the first brother stole the lovely
maiden and brought her back with him. But the more powerful Dragon
pursued after them, took her away, and flew up into the air to carry
her to a place of safety.
Then the third brother fitted a bolt to his crossbow, drew it, sped
the arrow, and hit that Dragon in the very middle of his heart. With
a fearful outcry the Dragon fell from the clouds and was dashed to
little bits upon a rock. And thus it would inevitably have been
with the King's daughter, whom the Dragon held tightly clasped,
had not the fifth brother flown swiftly and caught up the maiden,
so that she was kept safe and sound.
But now ensued a sudden and unlooked-for danger, for the dead Dragon's
brother drew near, and several other monsters with him; and it would
soon have been all over with the brothers if the fourth had not
speedily erected a strong fortress, in which all the brothers, the
King's daughter, and the High Chamberlain safely concealed themselves.
For a long time those hideous Dragons lay in wait around the fortress;
but they finally went away, having accomplished nothing. Then the
five brothers, the gracious maiden, and the High Chamberlain came
out and went home to the Dragon-mother.
And the eldest son said, "Is it not true, little mother, that the
maiden belongs to me, who rescued her from that furious Dragon?" The
second brother said, "But you would never have found her nor rescued
her if I had not traced up the scent." The third brother interrupted,
"Of what good would it have been that you, eldest brother, rescued her,
and you, second brother, traced up the scent, if I had not destroyed
the monster at the right moment? Therefore, in all right and reason,
the maiden belongs to me."
Here the fifth brother struck in. "By right the maiden belongs to me;
for if I had not caught her up in the very nick of time she would
not now be in the land of the living." And the fourth brother said,
"If you will consider the whole matter impartially, you will see that
I have the most righteous claim upon the maiden; for all your trouble
would have gone for nothing if I had not made the castle at the right
moment and hidden her, and you, too, to come within it."
And now the Chamberlain put in his word. "All your pretensions are
idle. The maiden is mine; for if I had not told you that she was stolen
away, the first would not have rescued her, nor the second traced up
the scent, nor the third destroyed the monster, nor the fifth caught up
the maiden, and the fourth would have concealed no one in his castle."
Thus all the six strove for possession of the maiden, until the
Dragon-mother put in her word. "If this is so, then you are all in
the right; but the maiden can surely not belong to you all. But you
can all take her for your sister and love and protect her as long as
you and she live."
And so they did, and in remembrance thereof they and the maiden were
set in the sky, and can be seen there to this day, and men call them
"the Seven Stars." [2] At least, so goes the story.
"Dragons are different from Reinecke and Petz and Isegrim," observed
the little boy.
"Don't you like them as well?" asked the grandmother.
"I like them," answered the little boy, "but I don't know them as well
as I know Reinecke and Isegrim. I am not used to them, grandmother."
"You will get used to them while you are at your other grandmother's,
where you are going to-morrow," said the grandmother. "The stories
of her commune are not at all the same as the stories of this commune."
"Why not, grandmother?" asked the little boy.
"I don't know why not," answered the grandmother, "but it is always
so. Every commune has its own stories. There are many dragons in
those of your other grandmother's commune. Now you are going out into
the world, you will get very wise, for you will know the stories of
two communes."