only gone a few steps when the bells rang out so prettily—
‘Where is Augustus dear?
Alas! he’s not here, here, here.’
‘Listen!’ said the Princess. ‘Ask him whether he will take ten kisses
from my ladies-in-waiting.’
‘No, thank you,’ said the Swineherd. ‘Ten kisses from the Princess, or
else I keep my pot.’
‘That is very tiresome!’ said the Princess. ‘But you must put
yourselves in front of me, so that no one can see.’
And the ladies-in-waiting placed themselves in front and then spread
out their dresses; so the Swineherd got his ten kisses, and she got
the pot.
What happiness that was! The whole night and the whole day the pot was
made to boil; there was not a fire-place in the whole town where they
did not know what was being cooked, whether it was at the chancellor’s
or at the shoemaker’s.
The ladies-in-waiting danced and clapped their hands.
‘We know who is going to have soup and pancakes; we know who is going
to have porridge and sausages—isn’t it interesting?’
‘Yes, very interesting!’ said the first lady-in-waiting.
‘But don’t say anything about it, for I am the Emperor’s daughter.’
‘Oh, no, of course we won’t!’ said everyone.
The Swineherd—that is to say, the Prince (though they did not know he
was anything but a true Swineherd)—let no day pass without making
something, and one day he made a rattle which, when it was turned
round, played all the waltzes, galops, and polkas which had ever been
known since the world began.
‘But that is _superbe!_’ said the Princess as she passed by. ‘I have
never heard a more beautiful composition. Listen! Go down and ask him
what this instrument costs; but I won’t kiss him again.’
‘He wants a hundred kisses from the Princess,’ said the
lady-in-waiting who had gone down to ask him.
‘I believe he is mad!’ said the Princess, and then she went on; but
she had only gone a few steps when she stopped.
‘One ought to encourage art,’ she said. ‘I am the Emperor’s daughter!
Tell him he shall have, as before, ten kisses; the rest he can take
from my ladies-in-waiting.’
‘But we don’t at all like being kissed by him,’ said the
ladies-in-waiting.
‘That’s nonsense,’ said the Princess; ‘and if I can kiss him, you can
too. Besides, remember that I give you board and lodging.’
So the ladies-in-waiting had to go down to him again.
‘A hundred kisses from the Princess,’ said he, ‘or each keeps his
own.’
‘Put yourselves in front of us,’ she said then; and so all the
ladies-in-waiting put themselves in front, and he began to kiss the
Princess.
‘What can that commotion be by the pigsties?’ asked the Emperor, who
was standing on the balcony. He rubbed his eyes and put on his
spectacles. ‘Why those are the ladies-in-waiting playing their games;
I must go down to them.’
So he took off his shoes, which were shoes though he had trodden them
down into slippers. What a hurry he was in, to be sure!
As soon as he came into the yard he walked very softly, and the
ladies-in-waiting were so busy counting the kisses and seeing fair
play that they never noticed the Emperor. He stood on tip-toe.
‘What is that?’ he said, when he saw the kissing; and then he threw
one of his slippers at their heads just as the Swineherd was taking
his eighty-sixth kiss.
‘Be off with you!’ said the Emperor, for he was very angry. And the
Princess and the Swineherd were driven out of the empire.
Then she stood still and wept; the Swineherd was scolding, and the
rain was streaming down.
‘Alas, what an unhappy creature I am!’ sobbed the Princess. ‘If only I
had taken the beautiful Prince! Alas, how unfortunate I am!’
And the Swineherd went behind a tree, washed the black and brown off
his face, threw away his old clothes, and then stepped forward in his
splendid dress, looking so beautiful that the Princess was obliged to
courtesy.
‘I now come to this. I despise you!’ he said. ‘You would have nothing
to do with a noble Prince; you did not understand the rose or the
nightingale, but you could kiss the Swineherd for the sake of a toy.
This is what you get for it!’ And he went into his kingdom and shut
the door in her face, and she had to stay outside singing—
‘Where’s my Augustus dear?
Alas! he’s not here, here, here!’
_HOW TO TELL A TRUE PRINCESS_
There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess,
but she must be a true Princess. So he travelled through the whole
world to find one, but there was always something against each. There
were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true
Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed
the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very
low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess. One
night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the
rain streamed down in torrents. It was fearful! There was a knocking
heard at the Palace gate, and the old King went to open it.
There stood a Princess outside the gate; but oh, in what a sad plight
she was from the rain and the storm! The water was running down from
her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and out at the
heels again. And yet she said she was a true Princess!
‘Well, we shall soon find that!’ thought the old Queen. But she said
nothing, and went into the sleeping-room, took off all the
bed-clothes, and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she put
twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty eider-down quilts on
the top of the mattresses. And this was the bed in which the Princess
was to sleep.
The next morning she was asked how she had slept.
‘Oh, very badly!’ said the Princess. ‘I scarcely closed my eyes all
night! I am sure I don’t know what was in the bed. I laid on something
so hard that my whole body is black and blue. It is dreadful!’
Now they perceived that she was a true Princess, because she had felt
the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down
quilts.
No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive.
So the Prince married her, for now he knew that at last he had got
hold of a true Princess. And the pea was put into the Royal Museum,
where it is still to be seen if no one has stolen it. Now this is a
true story.
[Illustration: A True Princess]
_THE BLUE MOUNTAINS_
There were once a Scotsman and an Englishman and an Irishman serving
in the army together, who took it into their heads to run away on the
first opportunity they could get. The chance came and they took it.
They went on travelling for two days through a great forest, without
food or drink, and without coming across a single house, and every
night they had to climb up into the trees through fear of the wild
beasts that were in the wood. On the second morning the Scotsman saw
from the top of his tree a great castle far away. He said to himself
that he would certainly die if he stayed in the forest without
anything to eat but the roots of grass, which would not keep him alive
very long. As soon, then, as he got down out of the tree he set off
towards the castle, without so much as telling his companions that he
had seen it at all; perhaps the hunger and want they had suffered had
changed their nature so much that the one did not care what became of
the other if he could save himself. He travelled on most of the day,
so that it was quite late when he reached the castle, and to his great
disappointment found nothing but closed doors and no smoke rising from
the chimneys. He thought there was nothing for it but to die after
all, and had lain down beside the wall, when he heard a window being
opened high above him. At this he looked up, and saw the most
beautiful woman he had ever set eyes on.
‘Oh, it is Fortune that has sent you to me,’ he said.
‘It is indeed,’ said she. ‘What are you in need of, or what has sent
you here?’
‘Necessity,’ said he. ‘I am dying for want of food and drink.’
‘Come inside, then,’ she said; ‘there is plenty of both here.’
Accordingly he went in to where she was, and she opened a large room
for him, where he saw a number of men lying asleep. She then set food
before him, and after that showed him to the room where the others
were. He lay down on one of the beds and fell sound asleep. And now we
must go back to the two that he left behind him in the wood.
When nightfall and the time of the wild beasts came upon these, the
Englishman happened to climb up into the very same tree on which the
Scotsman was when he got a sight of the castle; and as soon as the day
began to dawn and the Englishman looked to the four quarters of
heaven, what did he see but the castle too! Off he went without saying
a word to the Irishman, and everything happened to him just as it had
done to the Scotsman.
The poor Irishman was now left all alone, and did not know where the
others had gone to, so he just stayed where he was, very sad and
miserable. When night came he climbed up into the same tree as the
Englishman had been on the night before. As soon as day came he also
saw the castle, and set out towards it; but when he reached it he
could see no signs of fire or living being about it. Before long,
however, he heard the window opened above his head, looked up, and
beheld the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He asked if she
would give him food and drink, and she answered kindly and heartily
that she would, if he would only come inside. This he did very
willingly, and she set before him food and drink that he had never
seen the like of before. In the room there was a bed, with diamond
rings hanging at every loop of the curtains, and everything that was
in the room besides astonished him so much that he actually forgot
that he was hungry. When she saw that he was not eating at all, she
asked him what he wanted yet, to which he replied that he would
neither eat nor drink until he knew who she was, or where she came
from, or who had put her there.
‘I shall tell you that,’ said she. ‘I am an enchanted Princess, and my
father has promised that the man who releases me from the spell shall
have the third of his kingdom while he is alive, and the whole of it
after he is dead, and marry me as well. If ever I saw a man who looked
likely to do this, you are the one. I have been here for sixteen years
now, and no one who ever came to the castle has asked me who I was,
except yourself. Every other man that has come, so long as I have been
here, lies asleep in the big room down there.’
‘Tell me, then,’ said the Irishman, ‘what is the spell that has been
laid on you, and how you can be freed from it.’
‘There is a little room there,’ said the Princess, ‘and if I could get
a man to stay in it from ten o’clock till midnight for three nights on
end I should be freed from the spell.’
‘I am the man for you, then,’ said he; ‘I will take on hand to do it.’
Thereupon she brought him a pipe and tobacco, and he went into the
room; but before long he heard a hammering and knocking on the outside
of the door, and was told to open it.
[Illustration: The Princess Revives the Irishman]
‘I won’t,’ he said.
The next moment the door came flying in, and those outside along with
it. They knocked him down, and kicked him, and knelt on his body till
it came to midnight; but as soon as the cock crew they all
disappeared. The Irishman was little more than alive by this time. As
soon as daylight appeared the Princess came, and found him lying full
length on the floor, unable to speak a word. She took a bottle, rubbed
him from head to foot with something from it, and thereupon he was as
sound as ever; but after what he had got that night he was very
unwilling to try it a second time. The Princess, however, entreated
him to stay, saying that the next night would not be so bad, and in
the end he gave in and stayed.
When it was getting near midnight he heard them ordering him to open
the door, and there were three of them for every one that there had
been the previous evening. He did not make the slightest movement to
go out to them or to open the door, but before long they broke it up,
and were in on top of him. They laid hold of him, and kept throwing
him between them up to the ceiling, or jumping above him, until the
cock crew, when they all disappeared. When day came the Princess went
to the room to see if he was still alive, and taking the bottle put it
to his nostrils, which soon brought him to himself. The first thing he
said then was that he was a fool to go on getting himself killed for
anyone he ever saw, and was determined to be off and stay there no
longer. When the Princess learned his intention she entreated him to
stay, reminding him that another night would free her from the spell.
‘Besides,’ she said, ‘if there is a single spark of life in you when
the day comes, the stuff that is in this bottle will make you as sound
as ever you were.’
With all this the Irishman decided to stay; but that night there were
three at him for every one that was there the two nights before, and
it looked very unlikely that he would be alive in the morning after
all that he got. When morning dawned, and the Princess came to see if
he was still alive, she found him lying on the floor as if dead. She
tried to see if there was breath in him, but could not quite make it
out. Then she put her hand on his pulse, and found a faint movement in
it. Accordingly she poured what was in the bottle on him, and before
long he rose up on his feet, and was as well as ever he was. So that
business was finished, and the Princess was freed from the spell.
The Princess then told the Irishman that she must go away for the
present, but would return for him in a few days in a carriage drawn by
four grey horses. He told her to ‘be aisy,’ and not speak like that to
him. ‘I have paid dear for you for the last three nights,’ he said,
‘if I have to part with you now;’ but in the twinkling of an eye she
had disappeared. He did not know what to do with himself when he saw
that she was gone, but before she went she had given him a little rod,
with which he could, when he pleased, waken the men who had been
sleeping there, some of them for sixteen years.
After being thus left alone, he went in and stretched himself on three
chairs that were in the room, when what does he see coming in at the
door but a little fair-haired lad.
‘Where did you come from, my lad?’ said the Irishman.
‘I came to make ready your food for you,’ said he.
‘Who told you to do that?’ said the Irishman.
‘My mistress,’ answered the lad—‘the Princess that was under the
spell and is now free.’
By this the Irishman knew that she had sent the lad to wait on him.
The lad also told him that his mistress wished him to be ready next
morning at nine o’clock, when she would come for him with the
carriage, as she had promised. He was greatly pleased at this, and
next morning, when the time was drawing near, went out into the
garden; but the little fair-haired lad took a big pin out of his
pocket, and stuck it into the back of the Irishman’s coat without his
noticing it, whereupon he fell sound asleep.
Before long the Princess came with the carriage and four horses, and
asked the lad whether his master was awake. He said that he wasn’t.
‘It is bad for him,’ said she, ‘when the night is not long enough for
him to sleep. Tell him that if he doesn’t meet me at this time
to-morrow it is not likely that he will ever see me again all his
life.’
As soon as she was gone the fair-haired lad took the pin out of his
master’s coat, who instantly awoke. The first word he said to the lad
was, ‘Have you seen her?’
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘and she bade me tell you that if you don’t meet her
at nine o’clock to-morrow you will never see her again.’
He was very sorry when he heard this, and could not understand why the
sleep should have fallen upon him just when she was coming. He
decided, however, to go early to bed that night, in order to rise in
time next morning, and so he did. When it was getting near nine
o’clock he went out to the garden to wait till she came, and the
fair-haired lad along with him; but as soon as the lad got the chance
he stuck the pin into his master’s coat again and he fell asleep as
before. Precisely at nine o’clock came the Princess in the carriage
with four horses, and asked the lad if his master had got up yet; but
he said ‘No, he was asleep, just as he was the day before.’ ‘Dear!
dear!’ said the Princess, ‘I am sorry for him. Was the sleep he had
last night not enough for him? Tell him that he will never see me here
again; and here is a sword that you will give him in my name, and my
blessing along with it.’
With this she went off, and as soon as she had gone the lad took the
pin out of his master’s coat. He awoke instantly, and the first word
he said was, ‘Have you seen her?’ The lad said that he had, and there
was the sword she had left for him. The Irishman was ready to kill the
lad out of sheer vexation, but when he gave a glance over his shoulder
not a trace of the fair-haired lad was left.
Being thus left all alone, he thought of going into the room where all
the men were lying asleep, and there among the rest he found his two
comrades who had deserted along with him. Then he remembered what the
Princess had told him—that he had only to touch them with the rod she
had given him and they would all awake; and the first he touched were
his own comrades. They started to their feet at once, and he gave them
as much silver and gold as they could carry when they went away. There
was plenty to do before he got all the others wakened, for the two
doors of the castle were crowded with them all the day long.
The loss of the Princess, however, kept rankling in his mind day and
night, till finally he thought he would go about the world to see if
he could find anyone to give him news of her. So he took the best
horse in the stable and set out. Three years he spent travelling
through forests and wildernesses, but could find no one able to tell
him anything of the Princess. At last he fell into so great despair
that he thought he would put an end to his own life, and for this
purpose laid hold of the sword that she had given him by the hands of
the fair-haired lad; but on drawing it from its sheath he noticed that
there was some writing on one side of the blade. He looked at this,
and read there, ‘You will find me in the Blue Mountains.’ This made
him take heart again, and he gave up the idea of killing himself,
thinking that he would go on in hope of meeting some one who could
tell him where the Blue Mountains were. After he had gone a long way
without thinking where he was going, he saw at last a light far away,
and made straight for it. On reaching it he found it came from a
little house, and as soon as the man inside heard the noise of the
horse’s feet he came out to see who was there. Seeing a stranger on
horseback, he asked what brought him there and where he was going.
‘I have lived here,’ said he, ‘for three hundred years, and all that
time I have not seen a single human being but yourself.’
‘I have been going about for the last three years,’ said the Irishman,
‘to see if I could find anyone who can tell me where the Blue
Mountains are.’
‘Come in,’ said the old man, ‘and stay with me all night. I have a
book which contains the history of the world, which I shall go through
to-night, and if there is such a place as the Blue Mountains in it we
shall find it out.’
The Irishman stayed there all night, and as soon as morning came rose
to go. The old man said he had not gone to sleep all night for going
through the book, but there was not a word about the Blue Mountains in
it. ‘But I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘if there is such a place on
earth at all, I have a brother who lives nine hundred miles from here,
and he is sure to know where they are, if anyone in this world does.’
The Irishman answered that he could never go these nine hundred miles,
for his horse was giving in already. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ said the
old man; ‘I can do better than that. I have only to blow my whistle
and you will be at my brother’s house before nightfall.’
So he blew the whistle, and the Irishman did not know where on earth
he was until he found himself at the other old man’s door, who also
told him that it was three hundred years since he had seen anyone, and
asked him where he was going.
‘I am going to see if I can find anyone that can tell me where the
Blue Mountains are,’ he said.
‘If you will stay with me to-night,’ said the old man, ‘I have a book
of the history of the world, and I shall know where they are before
daylight, if there is such a place in it at all.’
He stayed there all night, but there was not a word in the book about
the Blue Mountains. Seeing that he was rather cast down, the old man
told him that he had a brother nine hundred miles away, and that if
information could be got about them from anyone it would be from him;
‘and I will enable you,’ he said, ‘to reach the place where he lives
before night.’ So he blew his whistle, and the Irishman landed at the
brother’s house before nightfall. When the old man saw him he said he
had not seen a single man for three hundred years, and was very much
surprised to see anyone come to him now.
[Illustration: The Irishman Arrives at the Blue Mountains]
‘Where are you going to?’ he said.
‘I am going about asking for the Blue Mountains,’ said the Irishman.
‘The Blue Mountains?’ said the old man.
‘Yes,’ said the Irishman.
‘I never heard the name before; but if they do exist I shall find them
out. I am master of all the birds in the world, and have only to blow
my whistle and every one will come to me. I shall then ask each of
them to tell where it came from, and if there is any way of finding
out the Blue Mountains that is it.’
So he blew his whistle, and when he blew it then all the birds of the
world began to gather. The old man questioned each of them as to where
they had come from, but there was not one of them that had come from
the Blue Mountains. After he had run over them all, however, he missed
a big Eagle that was wanting, and wondered that it had not come. Soon
afterwards he saw something big coming towards him, darkening the sky.
It kept coming nearer and growing bigger, and what was this after all
but the Eagle? When she arrived the old man scolded her, and asked
what had kept her so long behind.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ she said; ‘I had more than twenty times further
to come than any bird that has come here to-day.’
‘Where have you come from, then?’ said the old man.
‘From the Blue Mountains,’ said she.
‘Indeed!’ said the old man; ‘and what are they doing there?’
‘They are making ready this very day,’ said the Eagle, ‘for the
marriage of the daughter of the King of the Blue Mountains. For three
years now she has refused to marry anyone whatsoever, until she should
give up all hope of the coming of the man who released her from the
spell. Now she can wait no longer, for three years is the time that
she agreed with her father to remain without marrying.’
The Irishman knew that it was for himself she had been waiting so
long, but he was unable to make any better of it, for he had no hope
of reaching the Blue Mountains all his life. The old man noticed how
sad he grew, and asked the Eagle what she would take for carrying this
man on her back to the Blue Mountains.
‘I must have threescore cattle killed,’ said she, ‘and cut up into
quarters, and every time I look over my shoulder he must throw one of
them into my mouth.’
As soon as the Irishman and the old man heard her demand they went out
hunting, and before evening they had killed threescore cattle. They
made quarters of them, as the Eagle told them, and then the old man
asked her to lie down, till they would get it all heaped up on her
back. First of all, though, they had to get a ladder of fourteen
steps, to enable them to get on to the Eagle’s back, and there they
piled up the meat as well as they could. Then the old man told the
Irishman to mount, and to remember to throw a quarter of beef to her
every time she looked round. He went up, and the old man gave the
Eagle the word to be off, which she instantly obeyed; and every time
she turned her head the Irishman threw a quarter of beef into her
mouth.
As they came near the borders of the kingdom of the Blue Mountains,
however, the beef was done, and, when the Eagle looked over her
shoulder, what was the Irishman at but throwing the stone between her
tail and her neck! At this she turned a complete somersault, and threw
the Irishman off into the sea, where he fell into the bay that was
right in front of the King’s Palace. Fortunately the points of his
toes just touched the bottom, and he managed to get ashore.