was quite happy among the birds and flowers. But because the beauty of
Princess Golden-bright was famed throughout the land, many princes sent
to ask for her hand in marriage.
Some of them even came in person, but the princess would have nothing
to do with any of them.
“I am quite happy,” she said; “I do not want a husband.” However, when
she was twenty years old, her fairy god-mother came to pay her a visit,
and talked to her most earnestly upon this very subject of getting
married, telling her that it was exceedingly foolish of her to refuse
to see any of these suitors. “My dear Gentle,” she said, “whoever
heard of a princess who was an old maid? I don’t say you need choose
in a hurry, but I certainly think you ought at least to see these
gentlemen. You may very possibly find one among them whom you like, and
the ash-trees will help you to choose if you should be in doubt.”
[Illustration]
So the princess promised to do as her god-mother wished, and after her
departure she made it known by proclamation that Princess Golden-bright
was willing to receive any suitable person who might wish to pay her
his addresses.
The day after this was done she went as usual to sit in the Rondel,
and while she busied herself with her embroidery she talked over this
matter of the suitors with her beloved ash-trees.
“How shall I know whom to choose?” said the princess. “I have no
experience at all. If I must have a husband I should like to be sure
that he is the right one.”
“Do not be afraid, dear princess,” replied the ash-trees. “You know
that whosoever stands beneath our boughs is bound to speak the truth.
You need ask but one question of each of the suitors. According to his
answer you will be able to judge of his suitability as a husband.”
“What shall I ask him?” said the princess.
“Ask him,” replied the ash-trees, “what he most desires in a wife. That
will be quite sufficient.”
So the princess sat and waited.
Presently she heard a whispering among the leaves over her head.
“There’s one coming,” they said. “We can see him riding along the high
road.”
“Oh, what is he like?” said the princess.
“He is a very fine-looking gentleman indeed,” said the ash-trees. “He
rides on a great black prancing horse, and a company of twenty knights
rides behind him. He wears shining armour. The harness of his horse is
studded with jewels and the hilt of his sword blazes in the sunshine.”
“It sounds very exciting,” said the princess, and she put down her
stitching and smoothed her golden hair and spread out the folds of her
flower-embroidered gown, for naturally she wanted to look her best.
Before long the prince arrived at the castle gates, and a messenger
came out into the park to tell the princess that he had come from a
neighbouring kingdom to seek her hand.
“I will see him here,” said the princess.
So the prince came riding through the park with his knights all
jingling behind him, each of them bearing a golden casket containing a
present for the princess.
When the prince reached the foot of the little hill on which the Rondel
stood and saw the princess under the trees, he dismounted from his
horse and came on foot to where she sat.
The knights waited at the bottom of the hill.
The princess received him graciously, and he stood before her in the
shadow of the ash-trees and asked if she would marry him.
“I have a great kingdom,” said he, “great riches and great power, and
my enemies all fear me.”
“I am much honoured,” said the princess, “but I should like to ask you
one question. What do you most desire in a wife?”
“Obedience,” said the prince without an instant’s hesitation, for he
was obliged to speak the truth.
The princess smiled a little.
“And what would you do if your wife disobeyed you?” she asked.
“Whip her,” said the prince.
“I am much obliged to you,” said the princess, “but I am afraid that
I might not always be obedient, and I should not like to be whipped.
Good-day.”
So the prince rode away home again with his knights, and the princess
went on with her sewing.
Before long she again heard a whispering among the trees.
“Another suitor is riding along the road,” they said.
“Oh, and what is _he_ like?” said the princess.
“He rides on a white horse,” said the ash-trees, “and he wears a blue
velvet cap with a white feather in it. He carries a bunch of roses in
his hand, and behind him ride six gentlemen in gaily coloured mantles
with guitars slung over their shoulders. He has auburn hair and blue
eyes. They ride at the trot.”
“He sounds rather pleasing,” said the princess, and she picked a flower
from the syringa bush which grew at the entrance to the Rondel and
stuck it in her hair.
[Illustration: “IF YOU WILL MARRY ME,” HE SAID, “I WILL SPEND MY DAYS
MAKING VERSES ABOUT YOU.”]
The blue-eyed prince was also bidden to come out to the Rondel, and
he too dismounted from his horse at the foot of the little hill and
came gaily walking up the path till he stood beneath the branches of
the ash-trees.
He bowed low before the princess and laid his bunch of roses on the
table in front of her.
She smiled graciously, for he was a comely young man, and he thereupon
offered her his hand in exceedingly beautiful language.
“If you will marry me,” he said, “I will spend my days making verses
about you. They will be sung throughout my kingdom. I will make a whole
book of them. It shall be called ‘Songs of Queen Golden-bright.’” The
princess thought this sounded rather attractive. One does not so often
come across a prince who is also a poet.
But the ash-trees rustled softly above her head, and she remembered the
question that she was to ask.
“Will you tell me what you most desire in a wife?” she said.
“Beauty,” said the prince promptly.
“But supposing,” said the princess, “that your wife fell downstairs and
broke her nose, so that her beauty was spoilt. What then?”
“Oh, then of course I shouldn’t be able to make up any more verses
about her,” said the prince. “I should get very irritable. How could I
bear to look at a wife with a crooked nose? She would certainly have to
be most careful not to break her nose.”
The princess laughed.
“I think you’d better get married to a waxen lady,” she said. “If you
kept her in a glass case out of the sun she would remain beautiful for
ever, and there would be no fear of her nose getting broken. Thank
you very much for coming. I fear that we are not quite suited to one
another. Good-day.”
The prince bowed low, picked up his bunch of roses, and rode off again
through the park with his white feather streaming behind him in the
wind.
“I’m sorry,” said the princess. “He looked so very nice, and I’m sure
he must make lovely songs. But I should always have been afraid of
breaking my nose.” And she laughed again and took up her embroidery.
Several more suitors came during the day to ask for the hand of the
princess, but not one of them gave a satisfactory answer to the
question.
One of them thought it above all things desirable in a wife that she
should be able to make a good pudding; another required that she should
talk very little--“which I _certainly_ couldn’t promise,” said the
princess; another considered it most important that she should have
twelve bags full of gold pieces! They all had to tell the truth when
they stood under the branches of the ash-trees, and some of them really
had the most curious ideas.
At last, just as the sun was going down, there came a prince riding on
a chestnut horse and attended only by one squire. He had come a long
way, from a far-off country, and he had ridden hard, for he had heard
much about the lovely Princess Golden-bright and was afraid that he
might be too late.
In spite of his dusty and travel-stained appearance the princess was
pleased with the look of him, for he was tall and slender and had dark
curling hair and pleasant grey eyes, and she hoped very much that he
would answer the question satisfactorily.
When he came to the top of the little hill and saw the princess he
fell on his knee and could find no word to say, she was so much more
beautiful than he could ever have imagined.
But she smiled kindly at him, and he took courage and told her how for
a long time he had wanted to come to see her, and that now he feared he
had come too late.
The princess asked him many questions, but she hesitated to ask the
most important of all, for she liked him better every minute and was
afraid he might not give the right answer.
The ash-trees rustled and rustled as if a wind were blowing through
them, and at last she felt she must wait no longer.
“Will you tell me,” she said softly, “what it is that you most desire
in a wife?”
The prince was perplexed; truly he had never thought about the matter.
He looked down at the ground and then he looked up at the trees, and as
he did so they all began to whisper softly. “Gentle, Gentle, Gentle,”
they said.
“Why, of course,” said the prince, and he looked again at the princess
and smiled. “There is one thing I desire above all else in a wife. _She
must be Gentle._”
And what better answer could he have given? For Gentle indeed she was.
The princess stood up and held out her hands to him. Her embroidery
fell to the ground.
“He’ll do, he’ll do,” rustled the ash-trees.
But the princess didn’t even hear them. She had already made up her
mind.
TWELVE
Jan and the Magic Pencil
There was once a little boy called Jan, who lived in a country village.
One day he had the good luck to be able to help a fairy out of a ditch,
where she had got stuck in the mud.
The fairy was very grateful to Jan, and promised him, as a reward for
his kindness, that he should have what he most wished for in the world.
Jan was not a very clever boy, and at first he couldn’t think of
anything to wish for. His father was a farmer, and Jan had a good home
and plenty to eat and drink; his only real trouble was that he was
always at the bottom of his class at school. His father scolded and his
mother wept, but Jan always stopped at the bottom. He wasn’t so bad at
reading and writing, but he simply could not do arithmetic. His sums
were always wrong, even the quite easy ones.
So when he had thought for a few minutes and the fairy was beginning to
grow impatient, he decided that the best thing for him to wish for was
that he might be able to get his sums right. The fairy accordingly gave
him a magic slate pencil which possessed the power of being able to do
any kind of arithmetic without ever making any mistake. You simply held
it in your hand and it would write down the answer on your slate almost
before you had time to read over the figures.
Jan was delighted with his present, which he put carefully away in his
pencil-box. He could hardly believe that it would do such wonderful
things; but, sure enough, he found he could do all his sums without the
slightest effort, and that every one of them was right.
Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication--it made nothing of them all.
Even those dreadful Long Division sums were no trouble to the magic
pencil: it danced nimbly down the slate without stopping even for a
second, and the answers were always right. Jan’s schoolmaster was
astonished, so were his parents, and delighted too, when by the end of
the week Jan had risen to the top of the school.
“What a good teacher I am, after all!” said the schoolmaster to
himself. “I have even been able to teach arithmetic to a boy who was
so hopelessly stupid over it that he couldn’t add up two and two
correctly.”
He was so proud of this that he actually invited the principal people
in the neighbourhood to come in and see his wonderful scholar.
And so it happened that the doctor, the lawyer, the priest, the mayor
and one or two other important folk from round about arrived at the
schoolhouse one fine day, all agog to see the schoolmaster’s wonderful
pupil.
[Illustration]
“Come here, Jan,” said the schoolmaster, “and show these gentlemen what
you can do.” And he wrote out a long sum on the blackboard--an addition
sum in twenty rows, all bristling with eights and nines. Poor Jan came
forward in fear and trembling.
“I’d rather do it on my slate,” he said.
But his schoolmaster wouldn’t hear of that.
So Jan had to stand up in front of the blackboard with a piece of chalk
in his hand. Of course he couldn’t do the sum at all. It took him a
dreadfully long time and not one figure was right.
“The boy’s nervous,” said the doctor. “You’ve been overtaxing him.”
The lawyer smiled and took a pinch of snuff. “I had an idea that our
friend the schoolmaster was rather drawing the long bow,” he whispered
to the mayor. The priest came and patted Jan’s head.
“Try again, my child,” he said. “You’ll do better next time.”
But Jan did no better the next time. If anything, he did even worse.
The schoolmaster was much annoyed. It made him look so foolish. When
the visitors had gone he gave Jan a good caning and sent him home in
disgrace.
His father and mother were very disappointed, too, when they heard what
had happened.
“I always knew the lad was a dullard,” said his father.
Jan wandered disconsolately out into the sunshine. It’s not nice to be
called a dullard, particularly when you’ve been top of your school for
a whole month. His mother came after him.
“You shall have a hot apple pasty for your supper,” she said; “it’s in
the oven now.”
But even apple pasty couldn’t console Jan.
He went into the lane and sat down near the place where he had seen the
fairy. He rather hoped he might see her again. Sure enough, he hadn’t
been there five minutes when he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and
there she was, perched on a swaying wild-rose spray in the hedge close
beside him.
“Oh, come,” she said when Jan had told her his trouble, “we can
soon remedy that.” And she gave him a piece of chalk to keep in his
pencil-box together with his fairy slate pencil. “Now you will be able
to do sums on the blackboard as well as on your slate,” she said.
Jan thanked her and went home feeling quite happy, so that he was able
thoroughly to enjoy his supper and his apple pasty.
Things went swimmingly for a while. Jan did more wonderful sums than
ever, both on the blackboard and on his slate. The schoolmaster
was more careful this time; but he called in first one person and
then another to see what Jan could do, and now he was no longer
disappointed. Even the lawyer had to acknowledge that the boy was
indeed a marvel.
But alas and alas! After a little time Jan became so conceited that he
was quite unbearable. He gave himself the most extraordinary airs. He
would hardly condescend to speak to the other boys. He even patronised
his own father and mother.
“No boy in the whole country is as clever as I,” he said. “The King
ought to see what I can do. I must certainly go to the Court. How they
will open their eyes!”
And so one fine day he prepared to set off to the Court to show the
King what he could do.
Now the King of that country was a rather cantankerous old gentleman,
and made short work of any one who displeased him. Jan’s mother didn’t
very much like the idea of his going, but Jan would not be dissuaded.
“You will see, mother,” he said, “I shall come home with a bagful of
gold, and perhaps the King will want me to stay at his Court. When I
am grown up I shall marry one of the Princesses, and you will be able
to ride in a golden coach and to wear a mantle of blue velvet trimmed
with ermine. All the neighbours will curtsey to you and call you Madam.
Wouldn’t you like that?”
His mother couldn’t imagine that she would like that very much, but she
thought it was rather sweet of Jan to think so much of his mother, and
she gave him a kiss and one of his father’s best linen shirts, and bade
him be sure not to get his feet wet.
So Jan set off to the palace, and when he got there he sent in a
message by the beautiful footman who opened the door that Jan, the
Arithmetical Wonder, had come to show the Royal Family what he could
do. It was a dull rainy afternoon, and it so happened that the King,
Queen, and the two Princesses were sitting at home in their State
apartments feeling rather bored. The Lord Chamberlain, who generally
amused them on wet days by asking them riddles, had gone to bed with a
very bad cold in his head, and they had nothing to do.
“Shall we have him in?” said the King to the Queen.
“He sounds very dull,” said the younger Princess, who was busy making
pale blue rosettes for her bedroom slippers.
“Better than nothing,” said her sister, who had just finished reading
all the love-letters that had come by the morning’s post, and was
pasting the prettiest ones into an album which she kept for that
purpose.
So Jan was ushered into the royal apartments, and he told the King and
Queen of his attainments--how he could do any sum, however difficult,
as quickly as it could be written down, almost more quickly, indeed. He
was a nice-looking lad and he had no end of assurance, and brought with
him, moreover, letters from all manner of important personages who had
tested his wonderful powers.
An attendant was sent to fetch the great Court account tablets, which
were made of ivory inlaid with silver, and the King offered Jan his own
golden pencil with rubies and diamonds round the top.
“Thank you very much,” said Jan, “I prefer a plain slate or a
blackboard, and I always use my own pencil.”
“_Prefer_, indeed,” said the King, with a great black frown. “What
business have you to prefer anything? Slates and blackboards! I’d have
you know that this is the King’s Palace and not a village schoolhouse.
If a gold pencil and ivory tablets are not good enough for you, you can
go and do your sums on the dungeon walls.”
Jan was very frightened. He didn’t at all like the idea of a dungeon,
so there was nothing for it but to brave it out as best he might.
One of the lords-in-waiting was bidden to write down the sums, and poor
miserable Jan wildly scribbled down the answers as fast as he could,
with the eyes of the King, the Queen and of their two lovely daughters
and all the lords- and ladies-in-waiting riveted upon him.
But as it happened, the only person at the Court who was any good at
arithmetic was the Lord Chamberlain, and he, as you know, was in bed
with a cold. It is much easier to put down sums than to work them out,
and not one member of the Royal Family had the faintest idea as to
whether Jan’s answers were right or wrong.
The King looked as wise as he could. “Very good, very good,” he kept
saying. The Princesses clapped their hands. _They_ had never been able
to get their sums right; but after all, what does it matter whether a
princess can do arithmetic or not?
If one or two of the Court ladies and gentlemen had a suspicion that
the figures were not quite correct they daren’t suggest such a thing.
If the King said the answers were right it was as much as their lives
were worth to say they were wrong. But of course Jan knew nothing of
all this. He wrote on and on, and all the time only one thought was in
his mind.
“How wonderful, how wonderful!” he kept saying to himself. “I have
grown so clever that I can do the sums by myself. I shall never need
to bother again about the stupid old pencil and chalk. I really am the
cleverest boy in the whole kingdom.”
He did not stay very long at the palace, and he was a little
disappointed to find that no one offered him a post at Court and that
he was not even presented with a bag of gold pieces.
Every one thanked him politely and he was given a good tea in the
housekeeper’s room, and the King and Queen shook hands with him
and gave him a pretty silver brooch to wear in his cap, while the
Princesses smiled pleasantly and wished him a good journey.
But he was buoyed up by his wonderful discovery. He went singing along
the road, and when he presently came to a deep pond he threw his slate
pencil and his bit of chalk into the middle of it, and continued gaily
on his way.
You may imagine how badly he wanted them back again the next day, and
for many, many days after: for of course he was as bad as ever at
arithmetic, and went straight to the bottom of the class, where he
stayed. Many times he went to the place where he had met the fairy, but
she never came again, for if you once throw away fairy gifts you never,
never get them back again.
THIRTEEN
The Lamb that Went to Fairyland
There was once a fairy who took a great fancy to a tiny white lamb. He
really was a dear little creature, and I don’t wonder she fell in love
with him. She used often to come and visit him in the meadow where he
lived with his mother, and she was very anxious to take him to a fairy
party some evening.
The little lamb was shy. “What do you do at the parties?” he asked.
“Oh, dance mostly,” said the fairy.
But the little lamb explained that he didn’t know how to dance.
“I will soon teach you,” said the fairy.
So she came every evening when her day’s work was done and showed the
little lamb how to dance, and he soon learned to skip about quite
nicely.
At last a day came when the fairy took him off to the party, but his
mother made him promise to come back the next morning. She knew the
ways of the fairies.
He enjoyed himself tremendously.
All the fairies admired him very much. They thought his coat so
beautifully white and soft, they loved his little black nose and quaint
woodeny legs. He gave them all rides on his back in turn (even the
Fairy Queen had one), and when the time for dancing came he did very
well indeed and astonished them all with his pretty steps. When he
left, the Fairy Queen presented him with a garland of daisies. “They
are fairy flowers,” she said. “They will never fade, and so long as you
wear them you will remain young.”
When the lamb got home he had great tales to tell about his happy
adventures, so that he became quite a celebrity, and every one made
such a fuss of him that he got rather proud and silly, and after a very
short time would hardly speak to his friends.
Of course this vexed them very much, and the wicked old rat who lived
in the mill-pond and was always ready to do any one an ill turn,
suggested a way to pay him out for his pride. “While he is asleep I
will gnaw through his gay garland that he is so proud of,” she said,
“and when he goes out walking he will lose it.” All of which happened
just as she had planned. And so the foolish lamb lost his fairy garland
and grew older like any other lamb.
His friend the fairy did not come to see him for some time. She
was very busy helping on all the spring things, and had no time
for visiting. When she did come again she was very disappointed to
find that the lamb had grown into quite a good-sized sheep, fat and
comfortable. His wool was no longer downy and white, and he had
entirely forgotten how to dance.
[Illustration]
“Where is your magic garland?” said the fairy. And he had to confess
that he had lost it.
The fairy went back to her friends. She really did not feel that a big
solemn sheep would be very welcome at their revels. But every year
in early spring when the new lambs are born, their mothers tell them
the story of the lamb that was invited to Fairyland, and they all go
skipping about in the meadows practising their dancing steps.
Each of them hopes that he may one day find the magic garland, and
never grow old and staid, and be able to go a-visiting to Fairyland.
After all, it must be lying about somewhere, so if you find it, you’ll
know what to do with it, won’t you? But be sure to give it to a lamb
with a black nose. They’re so much the prettiest.
FOURTEEN
The Magic Umbrella
There was once a wizard who possessed a magic umbrella; and, being
rather careless in his habits, he had the misfortune to leave it behind
him in a small country town where he had had an appointment to meet a
friend in the market-place at midnight. He left it standing against one
of the wooden market stalls, and there it was found next morning by a
farmer’s wife who had come into town to sell her butter and eggs.
“That’s a good, strong-looking umbrella,” she said to herself; “if no
one comes to claim it I shall keep it.” No one made any inquiries, so
she took possession of it, and when she went home in the evening, the
umbrella went with her.
Now, as I said before, this was no ordinary umbrella, but was possessed
of magic powers.
If you held it open in your hand and counted three and then stopped,
you found yourself in your own house.
If you counted five, however, you found yourself where you most desired
to be.
But if you counted up to seven, you were immediately carried away to
the top of the nearest church spire.
Now of all this the farmer’s wife was quite unaware, and you shall hear
what befell her in consequence.