arm, he walked off, followed by the horse and the hound. "And now for
my chickens."
"I'll go and get them for you," said the man, and went up to his
house, which was near, and told his wife all about it.
"But," she said, "why waste a pair of chickens on a foxy old fox! I
know what I'll do."
So she went into the back yard and unloosed the dog and put it into a
meal-bag and gave it to the man, who took it down and gave it to the
fox, who trotted off with it to his den.
But when he opened the bag out sprung the dog and gobbled him all up.
There's gratitude for you.
[Illustration: The Three Ravens]
JOHN THE TRUE
There was once a king who had long been unmarried. Now one day, going
through his palace, he came to a room that he had never opened before.
So he sent for the key and entered it, and opposite the door was the
picture of a most beautiful princess with skin white as snow and
cheeks red as blood and hair black as ebony. No sooner had he seen
this picture than he fell in love with it and asked who she was.
His chamberlain said, "That is the Princess of the Golden Horde, with
which your Majesty's kingdom has been at war these last twenty years.
Only three years ago, when your Majesty's father was alive, there was
some talk of peace and of betrothing you to her, and that was when her
portrait was sent here. But now the two kingdoms are at war and it
does not seem that peace will ever come."
But though there was no hope of marrying her the King could not help
but think of the Princess of the Golden Horde, and thought and thought
till he became quite pale and sick with love for her. Now he had a
faithful servant, the son of his own nurse, and thus his
foster-brother, and he was so devoted to the King that everybody
called him John the True.
When John the True saw his foster-brother pining away he went to him
and said:
"What ails thee, Oh sire?" for he alone had the right of calling the
King "thou."
Then said the King to John the True:
"Come and I will show thee, John." And he took him to the closed
chamber and showed him the portrait and told him how he felt towards
the Princess of the Golden Horde.
"Be of good cheer," said John the True; "I will go and fetch her for
thee."
"How can that be?" said the King; "we are at war with the Golden
Horde, and they would never give her to be my bride."
"Leave that to me," said John the True; "give me only a ship full of
merchandise and put in it a complete set of furniture made all of
gold, and see if I do not bring the Princess back to thee."
So the King did all that John the True demanded. And he sailed away
with the ship and its merchandise to the country of the Golden Horde.
And when he came there to the chief port he did not declare from what
country he was but sent up, as tribute to the King of the Golden
Horde, a beautiful chair all made of gold.
Now when the King saw this he became curious about this merchant and
his wares, and came down with his Queen and the Princess to view the
rarities. And when he saw the set of furniture all made of gold he
asked John the True what its price was.
But John said it was not for sale, but that he kept it to make gifts
of tribute to the kings whose realm he was visiting.
But the Princess had set her heart upon one dressing-table all of
gold, with crystal mirrors and lovely fittings, and asked John if he
could not sell it to her.
But John said, "No, that is kept for a special purpose, which I am not
allowed to tell."
This aroused the curiosity of the Princess, and later on towards the
evening she came down with only one maid to see if she could not
persuade John to let her have the dressing-table.
When she came on board John went to the captain and told him to set
sail as soon as the Princess went down into the cabin. And when she
came there he began telling her a long story, how that his master the
King had sent him to visit all the kingdoms of the earth, and that
this dressing-table was intended for the most beautiful princess whom
he should come across in his travels.
And then the Princess wanted to know whether he would have to finish
his travels before giving the table, and what the King expected from
the Princess.
John told her that everything was left to him and that, when he found
a princess with skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, and
hair as black as ebony, he was to present the table to her.
Then the Princess looked in the mirror and said:
"Have I not skin as white as snow, and cheeks as red as blood, and
hair as black as ebony? Then give me the table."
But just then she began to feel the motion of the ship and knew that
it was sailing away, and commenced to shriek and cry. But John told
her all that had happened, and how that he had come only for her, and
that his foster-brother the King was dying for love of her, and could
not come himself because the two countries were at war. So at last the
Princess became content, and they sailed on and on towards the country
of John the True.
As they were nearing land John was sitting in the prow, and the
Princess was reclining on a couch on deck, and three black ravens were
flying about the mast of the vessel. Now John, being the son of a
huntsman, knew the language of birds; and he listened to what they
said, and this was it:
"Caw, caw!" said the first raven. "There sits the Princess of the
Golden Horde, thinking that she will marry John's master the King. But
I know something which will prevent that."
"What is that?" asked the second raven.
"Why," said the first, "when the Princess lands and the King meets her
they will bring out to him a bay horse richly caparisoned, with a
pillion for the Princess. And if the King takes her with him on the
horse he will run away with them and dash them both to pieces. Caw,
caw!"
"But is there no remedy for that?" said the third raven.
"Only if some one cuts off the head of the horse, or tells the King;
but woe unto him if he does that, for as soon as he has told he will
become marble up to his knees. Caw, caw!"
"Even if he escapes that," said the second raven, "the King would
never marry the Princess, for at the wedding feast wine will be
presented to him, in a glass goblet, and at the first drop of it he
drinks he will fall down dead. Caw, caw!"
"But is there nothing to remedy that?" asked the first raven.
"Only if some one dashes the glass from his hand, or tells of the
danger; but if he tells he will become marble up to his waist. Caw,
caw!"
"Caw, caw!" said the third raven. "There is still another danger. On
the wedding night a dreadful dragon will creep into the bridal chamber
and kill both King and Princess. And there is no remedy against that
unless some one drives off the dragon or tells of the danger. But if
he tells he will become marble from head to foot. Caw, caw!"
When John the True heard all this he made up his mind he would save
his brother the King without telling him of the dangers that
threatened him. And when they neared the shore he caused a trumpet to
be sounded three times, which was the signal agreed upon between
himself and the King, that he had succeeded in bringing back the
Princess of the Golden Horde.
So the King came quickly down to the ship in all his glory and
received with joy the Princess, and thanked John the True for his
faithful service.
When it came time for the King to lead the Princess to his palace,
some one brought forth a noble bay horse richly caparisoned and with a
pillion at the back of the saddle for the Princess to ride on. And
just as the King gave her his hand and was about to mount the horse,
John the True drew his sword and cut off the head of the bay horse.
"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John the True has drawn his
sword in the King's presence."
But the King said, "What John the True does is done for me. Let a
coach be brought and we will return to the palace."
So the King and the Princess and John the True went to the palace, and
preparations were made for a grand wedding. And on the day of the
wedding there was a great banquet held, and at the beginning a glass
of wine was brought forth and presented to the King, and just as he
was lifting it to his lips John the True, who stood behind the King's
throne, rushed forward and dashed the goblet to the ground.
"Treason, treason!" cried the courtiers. "John the True is mad."
"Nay, nay," said the King; "what John the True does is for our good.
Wherefore did'st thou do that, John?"
"That I must not say," said John the True.
"Well, well," said the King; "doubtless thou hadst thy reasons; let
the banquet proceed."
On the night of the wedding John the True took his place with drawn
sword before the bridal chamber, and watched and watched and watched.
Towards midnight he heard a rustling in the bridal chamber and,
rushing in, saw a winged dragon coming through the window towards the
King and Princess. He dashed towards it and wounded it with his sword,
so that it flew out of the window, dropping blood on the way.
But the noise that John the True had made awakened the King and Queen,
and they saw him before them with sword dripping with blood. And not
recognizing him at first, the King called out for his guard, who came
in quickly and seized John the True.
When the King saw who it was he asked John if he had any explanation
of his conduct, and John said:
"That I may not say."
"This is more than I can bear," said the King. "Perhaps love has
turned thy brain."
And turning to the captain of his guard, the King said, "Let him be
executed in the morning in our presence."
When the morning came everything was ready for John's execution, when
he stood forth and said to the King:
"If your Majesty wills, I will explain my conduct."
"So be it," said the King; "I trust thou wilt prove that thou art
indeed John the True."
And John the True told the King and the Queen and the courtiers all
that had occurred and what he had heard from the ravens, and how he
had saved the life of the King and the Queen by wounding the dragon on
the preceding night. But as he told why he killed the horse his legs
became marble up to the knees. And when he explained why he had dashed
the poisoned wine-cup from the King's hand, the marble came up to his
waist. And when he explained how he had turned the dragon from the
bridal chamber, his whole body became marble from head to foot.
Then the King knew what a faithful servant he had in John the True;
and he bade his men to place the marble body on a golden stand on
which was written, "This is John the True who gave his life for his
King." And whenever the soldiers and the courtiers passed it they gave
it a salute.
Now after a time there came to the Queen two little twin boys, whom
she loved better than all the world. And they grew and they grew, till
they learned to speak. And every time they passed the statue of John
the True they would raise their little hands and give it a salute, for
the Queen, their mother, had told them what John the True had done for
their father and her.
But one night the Queen dreamed that a voice from Heaven said to her,
"John the True can live again if the two Princes be slain for his sake
and his body smeared with their blood."
The Queen told this dream to the King, and they were terrified at it,
but thought it only a dream. But twice again the same dream came to
the Queen on the following two nights; and then she said to her
husband the King,
"John the True gave his life for us; I feel we ought to give our
children for him."
The King at last agreed to the terrible sacrifice, and the heads of
the two Princes were cut off, and the statue of John smeared with
their blood, when it came to life and John the True lived again.
But when he learned how he had been brought to life again, he asked
to have the bodies of the Princes brought to his chamber, and, going
to the bridal chamber, scraped from the floor some of the dragon's
blood that had fallen there, and went back into his chamber and closed
the door.
Shortly after, the King and the Queen heard the voices of their sons
calling out for them; and when the door was opened there they were
alive again.
So the King and the Queen and the Princes lived together in all joy,
with their faithful servant John the True.
[Illustration: The Wounded Dragon]
[Illustration: The Witch]
JOHNNIE AND GRIZZLE
There was once a poor farmer who had two children named Johnnie and
Grizzle. Now things grew worse and worse for the farmer till he could
scarcely earn enough to eat and drink. All his crops went to pay rent
and taxes. So one night he said to his wife,
"Betty, my dear, I really do not know what to do; there is scarcely
anything in the house to eat, and in a few days we shall all be
starving. What I think of doing is to take the poor lad and lassie
into the forest and leave them there; if somebody finds them they will
surely keep them alive, and if nobody finds them they might as well
die there as here; I cannot see any other way; it is their lives or
ours; and if we die what can become of them?"
"No, no, father," said the farmer's wife; "wait but a few days and
perhaps something will turn up."
"We have waited and have waited and things are getting worse every
day; if we wait much longer we shall all be dead. No, I am determined
on it; to-morrow the children to the forest."
Now it happened that Johnnie was awake in the next room and heard his
father and his mother talking. He said nothing but thought and thought
and thought; and early next morning he went out and picked a large
number of bright-coloured pebbles and put them in his pocket. After
breakfast, which consisted of bread and water, the farmer said to
Johnnie and Grizzle,
"Come, my dears, I am going to take you for a walk," and with that he
went with them into the forest near-by.
Johnnie said nothing, but dropped one of his pebbles at every turning,
which would show him the way back. When they got far into the forest
the farmer said to the children,
"My dears, I have to go and get something. Stay here and don't go
away, and I'll soon come back. Give me a kiss, children," and with
that he hurried away and went back home by another road.
After a time Grizzle began to cry and said,
"Where's father? Where's father? We can't get home. We can't get
home."
But Johnnie said, "Never mind, Grizzle, I can take you home; you just
follow me."
So Johnnie looked out for the pebbles he had dropped, and found them
at each turn of the road, and a little after midday got home and asked
their mother for their dinner.
"There's nothing in the house, children, but you can go and get some
water from the well and, please God, we'll have bread in the morning."
When the farmer came home he was astonished to find that the children
had found their way home, and could not imagine how they had done so.
But at night he said to his wife,
"Betty, my dear, I do not know how the children came home; but that
does not make any difference; I cannot bear to see them starve before
my eyes, better that they should starve in the forest. I will take
them there again to-morrow."
Johnnie heard all this and crept downstairs and put some more pebbles
into his pocket; and though the farmer took them this time further
into the forest the same thing occurred as the day before. But this
time Grizzle said to her mother and father,
"Johnnie did such a funny thing; whenever we turned a new road he
dropped pebbles. Wasn't that funny? And when we came back he looked
for the pebbles, and there they were; they had not moved."
Then the farmer knew how he had been done, and as evening came on he
locked all the doors so that Johnnie could not get out to get any
pebbles. In the morning he gave them a hunk of bread as before for
their breakfast and told them he was going to take them into the nice
forest again. Grizzle ate her bread, but Johnnie put his into his
pocket, and when they got inside the forest at every turning he
dropped a few crumbs of his bread. When his father left them he tried
to trace his way back by means of these crumbs. But, alas, and
alackaday! The little birds had seen the crumbs and eaten them all up,
and when Johnnie went to search for them they had all disappeared.
So they wandered and they wandered, more and more hungry all the time,
till they came to a glade in which there was a funny little house; and
what do you think it was made of? The door was made of butter-scotch,
the windows of sugar candy, the bricks were all chocolate creams, the
pillars of lollypops, and the roof of gingerbread.
No sooner had the children seen this funny little house than they
rushed up to it and commenced to pick pieces off the door, and take
out some of the bricks, while Johnnie climbed on Grizzle's back, and
tore off some of the roof (what was that made of?). Just as they were
eating all this the door opened and a little old woman, with red eyes,
came out and said,
"Naughty, naughty children to break up my house like that. Why didn't
you knock at the door and ask to have something, and I would gladly
give it to you?"
"Please ma'am," said Johnnie, "I will ask for something; I am so, so
hungry, or else I wouldn't have hurt your pretty roof."
"Come inside my house," said the old woman, and let them come into her
parlour. And that was made all of candies, the chairs and table of
maple-sugar, and the couch of cocoanut. But as soon as the old woman
got them inside her door she seized hold of Johnnie and took him
through the kitchen and put him in a dark cubby-hole, and left him
there with the door locked.
Now this old woman was a witch, who looked out for little children,
whom she fattened up and ate. So she went back to Grizzle, and said,
"You shall be my little servant and do my work for me, and, as for
that brother of yours, he'll make a fine meal when he's fattened up."
So this witch kept Johnnie and Grizzle with her, making Grizzle do all
the housework, and every morning she went to the cubby-hole in which
she kept Johnnie and gave him a good breakfast, and later in the day a
good dinner, and at night a good supper; but after she gave him his
supper she would say to him,
"Put out your forefinger," and when he put it out the old witch, who
was nearly blind, felt it and muttered,
"Not fat enough yet!"
After a while Johnnie felt he was getting real fat and was afraid the
witch would eat him up. So he searched about till he found a stick
about the size of his finger, and when the old witch asked him to put
out his finger he put out the stick, and she said,
"Goodness gracious me, the boy is as thin as a lath! I must feed him
up more."
So she gave him more and more food, and every day he put out the stick
till at last one day he got careless, and when she took the stick it
fell out of his hand, and she felt what it was. So she flew into a
terrible rage and called out,
"Grizzle, Grizzle, make the oven hot. This lad is fat enough for
Christmas."
Poor Grizzle did not know what to do, but she had to obey the witch.
So she piled the wood on under the oven and set it alight. And after a
while the old witch said to her,
"Grizzle, Grizzle, is the oven hot?"
And Grizzle said, "I don't know, mum."
And when the witch asked her again whether it was hot enough, Grizzle
said,
"I do not know how hot an oven ought to be."
"Get away, get away," said the old witch; "I know, let me see." And
she poked her old head into the oven. Then Grizzle pushed her right
into the oven and closed the door and rushed out into the back yard
and let Johnnie out of the cubby-hole.
Then Johnnie and Grizzle ran away towards the setting sun where they
knew their own house was, till at last they came to a broad stream too
deep for them to wade. But just at that moment they looked back, and
what do you think they saw? The old witch, by some means or other, had
got out of the oven and was rushing after them. What were they to do?
What were they to do?
Suddenly Grizzle saw a fine big duck swimming towards them, and she
called out:
"Duck, duck, come to me,
Johnnie and Grizzle depend upon thee;
Take Johnnie and Grizzle on thy back,
Or else they'll be eaten--"
And the duck said,
"Quack! Quack!"
Then the duck came up to the bank, and Johnnie and Grizzle went into
the water and, by resting their hands on the duck's back, swam across
the stream just as the old witch came up.
At first she tried to make the duck come over and carry her, but the
duck said, "Quack! Quack!" and shook its head.
Then she lay down and commenced swallowing up the stream, so that it
should run dry and she could get across. She drank, and she drank, and
she drank, and she drank, till she drank so much that she burst!
So Johnnie and Grizzle ran back home, and when they got there they
found that their father the farmer had earned a lot of money and had
been searching and searching for them over the forest, and was mighty
glad to get back Johnnie and Grizzle again.
[Illustration: The Duck]
THE CLEVER LASS
Now there was once a farmer who had but one daughter of whom he was
very proud because she was so clever. So whenever he was in any
difficulty he would go to her and ask her what he should do. It
happened that he had a dispute with one of his neighbours, and the
matter came before the King, and he, after hearing from both of them,
did not know how to decide and said:
"You both seem to be right and you both seem to be wrong, and I do not
know how to decide; so I will leave it to yourselves in this way:
whichever of you can answer best the three questions I am about to ask
shall win this trial. What is the most beautiful thing? What is the
strongest thing? and, What is the richest thing? Now go home and think
over your answers and bring them to me to-morrow morning."
So the farmer went home and told his daughter what had happened, and
she told him what to answer next day.
So when the matter came up for trial before the King he asked first
the farmer's neighbour,
"What is the most beautiful thing?"
And he answered, "My wife."
Then he asked him, "What is the strongest thing?"
"My ox."
"And what is the richest?"
And he answered, "Myself."
Then he turned to the farmer and asked him,
"What is the most beautiful thing?"
And the farmer answered, "Spring."
Then he asked him, "What is the strongest?"
"The earth."
Then he asked, "What is the richest thing?"
He answered, "The harvest."
Then the King decided that the farmer had answered best, and gave
judgment in his favour. But he had noticed that the farmer had
hesitated in his answers and seemed to be trying to remember things.
So he called him up to him and said,
"I fancy those arrows did not come from your quiver. Who told you how
to answer so cleverly?"
Then the farmer said, "Please your Majesty, it was my daughter who is
the cleverest girl in all the world."
"Is that so?" said the King. "I should like to test that."
Shortly afterwards the King sent one of his servants to the farmer's
daughter with a round cake and thirty small biscuits and a roast
capon, and told him to ask her whether the moon was full, and what
day of the month it was, and whether the rooster had crowed in the
night. On the way the servant ate half the cake and half of the
biscuits and hid the capon away for his supper. And when he had
delivered the rest to the Clever Girl and told his message she gave
this reply to be brought back to the King:
"It is only half-moon and the 15th of the month and the rooster has
flown away to the mill; but spare the pheasant for the sake of the
partridge."
And when the servant had brought back this message to the King, he
cried out,
"You have eaten half the cake and fifteen of the biscuits and didn't
hand over the capon at all."
Then the servant confessed that this was all true, and the King said,
"I would have punished you severely but that this Clever Girl begs me
to forgive the pheasant, by which she meant you, for the sake of the
partridge, by which she meant herself. So you may go unpunished."
The King was so delighted with the cleverness of the girl that he
determined to marry her. But, wishing to test her once more before
doing so, he sent her a message that she should come to him clothed,
yet unclothed, neither walking, nor driving, nor riding, neither in
shadow nor in sun, and with a gift which is no gift.
When the farmer's daughter received this message she went near the
King's palace, and having undressed herself wrapped herself up in her
long hair, and then had herself placed in a net which was attached to
the tail of a horse. With one hand she held a sieve over her head to
shield herself from the sun; and in the other she held a platter
covered with another platter.
Thus she came to the King neither clothed nor unclothed, neither
walking, nor riding, nor driving, neither in sun nor in shadow.