to draw it from the dragon's body, and as he pulls it out the blood
from the wound spurts upon his hand. It burns as if it were the fuel of
the creature's fiery breath. As he feels its heat he puts his fingers
into his mouth, and the instant that he tastes the blood the most
wonderful thing of all happens to him. He understands the songs of the
birds. The one that he tried to talk with before sings to him again,
and now he knows every word. It tells him that in the cave are gold and
jewels untold, that with the magic helmet he can do wonderful things,
and that with the magic ring he can rule the world. He thanks the bird
for telling him such good things, and goes to find the helmet and the
ring. In a minute he comes back with them; he does not want the rest of
the treasure, for he knows nothing about gold and cares nothing about
it.
"Now the bird sings to him again. 'Beware of the dwarf,' it says, 'he
means to do you harm. But when he speaks to you the blood of the dragon
which you have tasted will help you to understand the meaning that is
in his heart instead of the words that he says.'
"So the dwarf comes back, with a drinking-horn in which he has poured
the poison, and he offers it to the hero to drink. But with all the
friendly words that he tries to speak, he can hide nothing from the
young man, who reads his heart and knows that he has kept him and fed
him all these years only that he might kill the dragon, and that now he
means to poison him and get the gold for himself. There is only one
thing to be done with such wickedness as this. He raises his sword and
with one blow strikes the dwarf dead.
"You can guess how the bird is delighted at this. It sings to him
again: 'I know where you could find the loveliest woman in the world.
There is fire burning all around her, and if you could only pass
through that you could win her for your wife.'
"'But could I pass through the fire?' he asks.
"'Only the hero who knows no fear can do that,' sings the bird.
"'Very well, then, I know no fear,' he answers; 'the dragon could not
teach it to me; lead me to this woman; perhaps I may learn it from
her.'
"The bird flutters down a little from the tree and then flies away. Did
you see the big, bright spark that flew up the chimney?
"Away runs the hero too, following the bird. It is a long journey,
through the forest and over the rocks and the mountains, but he is
young and eager, and his light heart makes the way almost as easy for
him as it is for the bird. Yet the bird is the faster, and by and by it
flies so far ahead that he cannot see it at all, and then his way is
barred by a mighty form that stands before him. It is the Father of the
Gods. The young man does not know what a terrible person he has met,
though it is fair to say that if he did know he would not care, and he
asks him if he knows where he may find the beautiful woman with the
fire all about her.
"The Father of the Gods asks him in turn how he heard of this woman,
what taught him to understand the song of the bird, who forged the
sword with which he killed the dragon. All these things he answers, and
the Father of the Gods is sure that the hero who knows no fear has come
at last. Yet one test remains for him. 'There is the place you seek,'
he says, as he points to the mountain-top, where the bright flames are
whirling and dancing and leaping up into the very sky, 'there is your
way, yet not another step upon it shall you go.' and he stretches his
spear across the path to keep the young man back.
"Ah, once before that spear was raised against this magic sword. It was
a mighty arm that swung the sword then, the arm of the best of heroes
living, but the hero had done a wrong, he had helped to break a
promise, and he who breaks promises can never break the spears of the
gods. His arm had not the young strength of that which masters the
sword to-day. Fierce and brave and noble was he, yet he had seen many
sorrows, and he knew what fear was; the glad, free hope of the new hero
was not his. The sword then was true of temper, bright and sharp, but
the heat and the light of the fire of a new manhood had not been forged
into it then, and it was not aflame with the glory of youth and the
promise of love. And so, with a sweep and a flash as of lightning, the
magic sword cuts through the spear that no other sword ever dared even
strike, and as the fragments fall upon the ground, the mountain shakes
and shudders, and the thunder rolls and rumbles about its top. The
young man is again upon his way. Half sadly and half gladly, the Father
of the Gods looks after him. He has come and has passed, the hero who
knows no fear; he has not even feared the spear that ruled the world,
and now that spear is broken. The time of the gods is near.
"Again I see the whole fire streaming up fiercely and joyously, as it
did when the Father of the Gods kissed his daughter to sleep. The winds
are still hushed around the mountain top, the flowers in the grass and
on the rock still droop with folded petals, and the horse still sleeps
upon the ground, for there, in the midst of the fire, on the bank of
moss still lies the Daughter of the God, her form covered with her
shield, and her face hidden by her closed helmet. Through all these
years nothing has changed or stirred in this magic circle except the
changing, stirring, restless, watchful fire that rings it around. Now,
the time for life has come again. Up from the mountain side comes a
ringing horn note, and in a moment the hero strides through the flames
that dart and flicker and lick at him, but cannot harm him, and stands
in the magic circle gazing in wonder upon its strange sleep.
"'Who is that,' he thinks, 'covered with the shield? It must be a
knight, but is it not hard for him to lie there all dressed in armor?'
He gently takes off the helmet and starts back in surprise as he sees
the lovely face and the soft spun gold that falls out upon the moss as
he lifts the helmet away. Now he raises the shield and tries to open
the armor in front, that the knight may breathe more freely. He cannot
unfasten it, and at last he cuts it with his sword, and then he starts
again as he sees the light, snowy folds of the garment underneath. This
can be no knight, this is a woman. What has he done? What shall he do?
He stands and looks at her; he has never seen anything half so
beautiful, and as he looks he trembles; he fears to wake her and he
fears to leave her asleep. Yes, the hero who knew no fear trembles. He
has learned to fear from this woman. Not by anything that she has done
has she taught him, for she still sleeps. It is only because she is a
woman that he fears. He is no less a hero for that. A man who lived
long and never feared at all would be no hero. The time has come to
him, as it must come to every man, when it is braver to fear.
"Yet, though he fears, he does not hesitate. He does just the only
thing that he possibly could do. He kneels beside her and kisses her
lips. Then she awakes. She opens those eyes that are blue with the
depth of the sea and the light of the sky. She gazes around her at the
rocks, at the trees, at the sunlight, at her hero, and her face is
filled with joy. And what a face it is! No longer as it was before. At
her father's kiss the goddess slept; her hero's kiss awoke the woman.
Her face is as clear, as pure, and as radiant as before, but soft and
gracious and gentle; her eyes are as full of light as they were, but
there is tenderness in them too; her lips are as calm and beautiful,
but they are all sweetness; what was still and stern and placid is full
of sympathy, kind, and loving.
"The flowers lift up their heads and open to look at her; the horse
neighs to say that he is awake again and knows her; the little winds
come back and murmur softly at first among the leaves; then they get
bolder and kiss her cheek and lift her hair and shake it out to the
light, and whisper to her hero and ask him if he saw any gold like that
in the dragon's cave. He has never seen any woman before, yet he knows
that in all the world there cannot be another such as this. She has
seen many heroes, yet this is he for whom she has waited so long. Each
knows all the depth of the other's thoughts, and so they stand and gaze
each into the other's eyes and into the other's heart."
"And is that all?" said the child. "It ends just like 'The Sleeping
Beauty,' doesn't it?"
"No; just here it is like 'The Sleeping Beauty,' but we shall see more
some other time. This is the end for the night."
THE END OF THE RING
The fire has always fascinated and charmed me. When I was a child
myself I used to watch it till my eyes ached, and my habit of throwing
sticks and paper into it to see them burn was a terror to all my aunts.
A bonfire was a delicious joy, and fireworks, especially if I could set
them off myself, were the summit of happiness. Even now, whenever I see
a house on fire I am afraid my pleasure in watching it is much greater
than my sorrow for the people who are losing their property or their
home. I do not want houses to burn, but if they must burn I want to see
them. As for the fire on the hearth, that is my counsellor and friend.
When we are alone together I sit and gaze into it, and it tells me of
old, happy times, of other friends who are far away now, and of the
pleasant nights we had together. It speaks to me of old hopes, it is
glad with me in their fulfilment or it cheers me in their loss. It
talks of bright, new hopes, and tells me that even if all else fails,
it will still be true to me and will try, if I will come back to it, to
cheer and help me again as it cheers and helps me now.
As I sat in this way with the fire, the little girl came and took a low
stool beside me. She looked into the fire too, laying her cheek upon my
hand, which rested on the arm of the chair. She does not care for our
talks about other hearth fires that long ago went out, so we had to do
something else to entertain her. "Did you want to know more about the
Daughter of the God and the Hero who knew no fear?" I said. "Well, I
can see them both now, just where we saw them last on the mountain top,
with the fire burning around them as it did before, but not so high and
fierce as before, because it is not needed for a guard so much as it
was.
"The Daughter of the God is telling her hero that he ought to go to
seek more adventures. Perhaps he may find other things for his magic
sword to kill besides dragons and wicked dwarfs, and the more such
things he does the better she will love him when he comes back. Oh, she
knows all about heroes and what they ought to do. He does not like to
leave her at all, but if he knows that she really wants him to seek
adventures, you may be sure he will seek them. Before he goes, he gives
her the ring that he got from the dragon's cave, with the curse upon
it, but they are not the sort of man and woman to trouble themselves
about curses. In return she gives him her horse and her shield, not
that he will need it much against his enemies, with that magic sword,
and besides she knows how to cast a spell upon him so that he cannot be
wounded in battle; but the shield may keep off the rain, if he has to
sleep out of doors. So he goes away down the mountain and she waits for
him to come back.
"Now all the fire changes to a shining river. It is the same river
where the treasure was once kept by the nymphs, only now we are above
it instead of under it. On the bank is the hall of a king and I see the
king himself sitting on his throne, with his sister, a beautiful
princess, beside him. With them too is their half-brother. He is a
strange fellow and you ought to know him. His father is the dwarf who
stole the treasure, and his father has told him all about it many times
and has taught him to hope that some time he may get it again, so that
they two may divide all the riches between them, and with the ring and
the helmet may rule the world. He is just as wicked as his father, all
he cares for in the world is to get that treasure, and you may be sure
that he will try to get it in every way that he can find, good or bad.
"He is trying at this very moment, and in rather a strange way, you may
think at first. He is telling the king that he ought to have a wife,
and that his sister ought to have a husband. The king asks, just as
everybody always asks when he is told that, 'Whom do you want me to
have?'
"'The most beautiful and the most royal of all women,' says the half-
brother, 'lives upon a rock with fire all around it for a guard, and
whoever shall break through the fire and come to her shall win her for
his wife.'
"This does not encourage the king at all. He never walked through a
fire or did anything of the sort, and he does not even care to try. You
see the difference between a king and a hero. But the half-brother says
that he knows of a hero who would be glad to go through the fire and
get this woman for the king, if only he might have the king's sister
for himself. The princess is not displeased at all at the notion of a
husband who is so brave and can do such wonderful things, but she fears
that such a hero must long ago have seen and loved some woman more
beautiful than she, and that he will not care for her at all. But the
half-brother answers: 'There is a magic drink which you shall give him,
and it will make him forget any other woman he has ever seen, no matter
who she is.'
"The half-brother knows very well, I believe, that the hero already
loves the Daughter of the God, and it is she that he means to make him
forget before he sends him to get her for the king. Of course the king
and his sister know nothing about this, or they would have nothing to
do with such a wicked plan, for they are reasonably good people. The
half-brother says that the hero is going about the world to find
adventures and is sure to come here before long, and true enough, even
while he is speaking they see him coming with his horse in a little
boat on the river. They call to him to come on shore, and they welcome
him as if they were never so glad to see anybody before in their lives.
"Perhaps, indeed, they never were so glad to see anybody, and I am sure
the princess never was. A form so full of life and action and vigor, or
a face so full of freedom and courage and cheer surely she has never
seen. The fine frankness of his ways and the young grace of his motion
are new to her too, and that she can hope to win him at once for
herself is almost more than she can believe. She would not think of
such a thing at all if she knew how little he thought or cared about
her. He is charming and polite enough, of course, but as often as he
thinks of her or of anything else once he thinks of the Daughter of the
God twice, and when his thoughts are not especially drawn away he
thinks of her all the time. But now the princess offers him a horn
filled with the magic drink that is to make him forget. Oh, if only
that clever little bird were here now to warn him, as it did when the
dwarf mixed the drink for him, how much trouble might be saved! But,
you know, he never thinks of danger, so he drinks, and then he thinks
of nothing at all--nothing at all but the princess.
"Well, that is not surprising, for you know she is only the second
woman he ever saw and he has forgotten the first. You would scarcely
believe how much he has forgotten her. Why, if the king were to tell
him at this moment that a woman slept under a shield, guarded by fire,
that a young man came through the fire, cut open her armor, kissed her,
awakened her, and vowed that he would love her forever, he would not
remember that he had ever known of anything of the kind or had ever
heard of such a young man. For him there is no woman in the world now
but the princess.
"The king does tell him a little of this story, when the hero asks him,
still thinking of the princess, whether he has a wife as well a sister.
'No,' the king answers, 'I have no wife. The woman I want for my wife I
fear I never can win; she is far away upon a mountain and a fire burns
all around her. He who could pass through the fire and come to her
might win her, but I could never do it.'
"It is just as I told you. This absurd young man does not know that he
ever heard of a woman in the middle of a fire before; he does not know
that he ever learned to fear, so he says: 'I am not afraid of a little
fire; I will go and get your bride for you if you will give me your
sister for mine.'
"'I will give you my sister gladly,' says the king; 'but how is my
bride to be made to think that it is I who come to her and win her,
instead of you?'
"'That is easy,' says the half-brother; 'with that helmet which he
wears he can take any form he will, and he can make himself look
exactly like you. He shall bring the woman away through the fire and
then he shall leave her to you, and she will never know that it was not
you who came to her rock.'
"Now, the hero, you know, never knew what could be done with that
helmet. He only took it with him from the dragon's cave because the
little bird told him it was good for something. Now that he has learned
its use everything that he and the king want to do seems simple enough,
and they set off in the little boat for the rock with the fire around
it. The half-brother stays on the shore and looks after them, with his
pale face and his wicked eyes. The woman far away on that rock has the
magic ring. When the king brings her here as his bride he will find
some way to get the ring, and then what will he care for kings or
brides, for princesses or heroes? He and the wicked dwarf, his father,
will rule the world.
"The fire burns up high and clear again and within its circle sits the
Daughter of the God. She does not sleep now; she sits and gazes at the
ring her hero gave her, thinking nothing of the curse upon it, and
wonders when he will come back to her. Ah, when will her hero come back
to her? Do you remember how once on this very rock the daughters of the
god met to ride together to his castle, and how they came each riding
on her flying horse, racing with the driving wind and the hurrying
clouds? With just such a leap and a flash of a sudden flame up into the
smoke I can see one of them riding now. So quickly she gallops through
the sky that I can scarcely see what she is till she reaches the rock,
springs from her horse, and stands before her sister. Her sister runs
to meet her and to ask if their father is still angry with her.
"The war goddess has sad things to tell of their father. He sits in his
castle with the gods and his heroes around him. They do not go out to
fight and kill each other, and to be made alive and well again at
sunset any more. The Father of the Gods only sits there and looks at
his broken spear, and the rest, full of dread, look only at him. He is
weary of ruling the world, weary of all the trouble that has come from
the wrong that he did in not giving that treasure back to the river
nymphs. He is not sorry that his spear is broken and he would gladly
hasten the end of all. He has made his heroes cut down the great ash
tree from which his spear was made, the tree that spread its branches
over all his castle, and they have piled the wood high around the
walls. When the end comes it will help the castle to burn. And now the
Father of the Gods says that, if the woman who has the magic ring whose
curse has been so heavy would but give it back to the river nymphs, all
his great sorrows would be over.
"This his daughter, the war goddess, heard, and hastened here to tell
it to his daughter, the woman. Will she give up the ring? Will she help
the gods to find the rest that they long for? Ah, but a war goddess
knows as little of women as she does of men. No, no, the woman loves
the man who gave her the ring and she would not lose it for a moment to
gain ages of peace for the gods whose homes she shares no more. She
cares nothing for weary gods; she has a hero. The war goddess cannot
understand her sister. She leaves her and is away again, toward the
castle of the gods, riding on her flying horse, galloping against the
driving wind and the hurrying clouds.
"A horn sounds down in the valley. There is only one horn in the world
like that, and the woman springs joyfully up to meet her hero. He comes
and walks through the fire as he did before, but oh! how different he
is from what he was before! Then his face was young and fresh and noble
and his form was graceful and light; now his face and his form are
those of the king. Is this the promise that the Father of the Gods made
to his daughter? He said that none should ever come to her or win her
but the bravest of heroes. Yes, this is indeed the promise and this the
hero, but how sadly for her the promise is kept! When he saw her before
he gently lifted off her helmet and kissed her and learned to fear
before her; now he thinks only of the princess, away there by the
river, and he tells the Daughter of the God that he is the king and
that she must come with him and be his bride.
"She resists him, and he seizes her to force her. She holds out her
hand to him with the ring and bids him beware its power, which will
protect her from him; he seizes her hand and pulls the ring from her
finger. She is helpless; she faints in his grasp; he carries her
through the fire and down the mountain to where the real king is. He
leaves them together and goes back alone to the hall by the river and
to the princess.
"Very glad is the princess, you may be sure, to see him come back so
quickly and so safely, and glad too is the half-brother, but for a
different reason, for he sees the ring on his finger. Now they call all
the people together to greet the king and his bride as they come in
their boat on the river. There are shouts and cheers, and men with
waving banners and women who scatter flowers; the king smiles upon his
people and thanks them for their greeting, and there is only one who is
not merry and glad. And whom do you think the king's new bride sees in
all this happy crowd? Only her hero, in his own form again, and, if her
heart was wounded and sad before, it dies within her now, when she sees
him leading the princess out to meet them and knows that he thinks no
longer of her. She turns pale and faint at first and then angry and
fierce. She cries out that this man was her lover, that he has betrayed
her for the princess and that he has betrayed the king too.
"Of course, nobody can understand that at all--nobody but the half-
brother--but you can think how everybody must be shocked and
astonished, and how everybody tries to make out what she means, and
fails. To be sure, she understands it herself as little as the rest.
She knows nothing about the magic drink that made her lover forget her;
she knows only that he swore always to love her and that now he loves
the princess. The king does not know that the hero ever saw his bride
till he went to her mountain to bring her for him, so he supposes that,
if he ever told her that he loved her, it must have been then; that
would be betraying the king, his friend, in a most cruel way, of
course. The princess knows only just what the king knows, and if the
king has been deceived and betrayed, she must have been deceived and
betrayed a great deal more. As for the poor hero himself, he does not
remember that he ever saw this woman before, he does not know how he
can have done any wrong, and he is more puzzled than any of the rest.
Only the half-brother knows all about it, that nobody is to blame at
all except himself, and it is he whom nobody thinks of suspecting. The
hero lays his hand on the half-brother's spear and swears that he has
never wronged anyone here; if he has, he says, may this very spear slay
him.
"Now is the time for the half-brother to work the hero's ruin and to
try to get the ring that he wears. When all have gone but him and the
king and his bride, he whispers to her that he will help her, and will
kill the hero to revenge the wrong that he has done her. 'You kill
him!' she cries. 'If he once looked at you, you would not dare come
near him.'
"'Yet,' he says, 'there must be some way that I could do it; tell me
what it is and you will be revenged.'
"'I cast a spell upon him,' she says, 'so that he could not be wounded
in battle, but I knew that he would never turn his back upon an enemy,
so I set no spell there; you may strike him in the back.'
"Now, he tells the king that nothing but the hero's death can restore
the honor that he has lost. 'To-morrow,' he says, 'we will go hunting;
I will kill him with my spear, and we will tell the princess that it
was a wild boar that did it.'
"'It shall be so,' they all cry; 'he must die.'
"And whom do you think I see now? The river nymphs again. Not before
the king's house, where we have been so long, but in another part of
the river, all shut in by wild woods and rocks. They are swimming and
playing on the water, just as they did under it when we saw them first,
and they seem just as careless and happy as they did then, but they are
still mourning for their lost treasure and longing to get it back
again. If they could only get the ring it would do as well as the whole
treasure, for the ring is the magic part of it. And now to this very
spot comes the hero, who wears the ring on his finger. He has wandered
away from the king and his men, who were hunting with him, and as soon
as the nymphs see him they beg him to give them back their ring.