Once upon a time, there was an old woman who lived in a cottage set in
the midst of a pretty garden, and in the garden was a bed of beautiful
tulips.
Fairies and pixies are very fond of these flowers; and every night they
brought their babies to put them to sleep under the tulips in the old
woman’s garden, and the tulips sang and rocked the little pixies to
sleep.
As soon as the babies were asleep the fairy mothers and fathers would
return to the fields, and there dance in moon-lit rings all night. When
morning came they returned to the tulips to wake their little ones with
gentle kisses.
[Illustration: Story page illustration showing an old man with a shovel
looking down at a tiny fairy in a tulip bed, with a thatched cottage
border on the right.]
The tulips thus visited by the fairies kept fresh and beautiful much
longer than any other flowers in the garden, and, strange to say, they
also smelt as sweet as roses. The old woman was therefore so proud of
her tulips that she never allowed anyone to touch them. One sad day, the
old woman died, and an unkind man came to live in her cottage, who did
not love flowers. He tore them all up, and planted a parsley bed
instead; but he was well punished, for the fairies were so angry at the
way he had treated their tulips that every night they danced and
trampled on the parsley, so that it withered away. Indeed, they allowed
nothing to grow in that garden for a long time.
[Illustration: Story page illustration showing a group of tiny fairies
dancing on a lawn at night beneath a drooping yellow tulip while a snail
plays a pan flute.]
The fairies, however, took great care of the grave where the old woman
was buried, and mosses and grasses grew on it, and sweet wild flowers;
and that was how they showed their gratitude to the old woman for
keeping lovely tulips as cradles for their babies.
[Illustration: Color illustration of a royal family in Renaissance
attire on a riverbank, with a man gesturing toward swans and a castle on
a distant hill.]
[Illustration: Art Nouveau style decorative border panel featuring a
symmetrical design of forget-me-not flowers, vines, and small yellow
bows on a pale background.]