"Eight white peahens went down to the gate:
'Wait!' they said, 'little sister, wait!'
They covered her up with feathers so fine;
And none went out, when there went back nine."
A LONG time ago there lived a King and a Queen, who had an only son. As
soon as he was born his mother gave him to the forester's wife to be
nursed; for she herself had to wear her crown all day and had no time
for nursing. The forester's wife had just given birth to a little
daughter of her own; but she loved both children equally and nursed them
together like twins.
One night the Queen had a dream that made the half of her hair turn
grey. She dreamed that she saw the Prince her son at the age of twenty
lying dead with a wound over the place of his heart; and near him his
foster-sister was standing, with a royal crown on her head, and his
heart bleeding between her hands.
The next morning the Queen sent in great haste for the family Fairy, and
told her of the dream. The Fairy said, "This can have but one meaning,
and it is an evil one. There is some danger that threatens your son's
life in his twentieth year, and his foster-sister is to be the cause of
it; also, it seems she is to make herself Queen. But leave her to me,
and I will avert the evil chance; for the dream coming beforehand shows
that the Fates mean that he should be saved."
The Queen said, "Do anything; only do not destroy the forester's wife's
child, for, as yet at least, she has done no wrong. Let her only be
carried away to a safe place and made secure and treated well. I will
not have my son's happiness grow out of another one's grave."
The Fairy said, "Nothing is so safe as a grave when the Fates are about.
Still, I think I can make everything quite safe within reason, and leave
you a clean as well as a quiet conscience."
The little Prince and the forester's daughter grew up together till they
were a year old; then, one day, when their nurse came to look for them,
the Prince was found, but his foster-sister was lost; and though the
search for her was long, she was never seen again, nor could any trace
of her be found.
The baby Prince pined and pined, and was so sorrowful over her loss that
they feared for a time that he was going to die. But his foster-mother,
in spite of her grief over her own child's disappearance, nursed him so
well and loved him so much that after a while he recovered his strength.
Then the forester's wife gave birth to another daughter, as if to
console herself for the loss of the first. But the same night that the
child was born the Queen had just the same dream over again. She dreamed
that she saw her son lying dead at the age of twenty; and there was the
wound in his breast, and the forester's daughter was standing by with
his heart in her hand and a royal crown upon her head.
The poor Queen's hair had gone quite white when she sent again for the
family Fairy, and told her how the dream had repeated itself. The Fairy
gave her the same advice as before, quieting her fears, and assuring her
that however persistent the Fates might be in threatening the Prince's
life, all in the end should be well.
Before another year was passed the second of the forester's daughters
had disappeared; and the Prince and his foster-mother cried themselves
ill over a loss that had been so cruelly renewed. The Queen, seeing how
great were the sorrow and the love that the Prince bore for his
foster-sisters, began to doubt in her heart and say, "What have I done?
Have I saved my son's life by taking away his heart?"
Now every year the same thing took place, the forester's wife giving
birth to a daughter, and the Queen on the same night having the same
fearful dream of the fate that threatened her son in his twentieth year;
and afterwards the family Fairy would come, and then one day the
forester's wife's child would disappear, and be heard of no more.
At last when nine daughters in all had been born to the forester's wife
and lost to her when they were but a year old, the Queen fell very ill.
Every day she grew weaker and weaker, and the little Prince came and sat
by her, holding her hand and looking at her with a sorrowful face. At
last one night (it was just a year after the last of the forester's
children had disappeared) she woke suddenly, stretching out her arms
and crying. "Oh, Fairy," she cried, "the dream, the dream!" And covering
her face with her hands, she died.
The little Prince was now more than ten years old, and the very saddest
of mortals. He said that there were nine sorrows hidden in his heart, of
which he could not get rid; and that at night, when all the birds went
home to roost, he heard cries of lamentation and pain; but whether these
came from very far away, or out of his own heart he could not tell.
Yet he grew slenderly and well, and had such grace and tenderness in his
nature that all who saw him loved him. His foster-mother, when he spoke
to her of his nine sorrows, tried to comfort him, calling him her own
nine joys; and, indeed, he was all the joy left in life for her.
When the Prince neared his twentieth year, the King his father felt that
he himself was becoming old and weary of life. "I shall not live much
longer," he thought: "very soon my son will be left alone in the world.
It is right, therefore, now that he should know of the danger ahead that
threatens his life." For till then the Prince had not known anything;
all had been kept a secret between the Queen and the King and the family
Fairy.
The old King knew of the Prince's nine sorrows, and often he tried to
believe that they came by chance, and had nothing to do with the secret
that sat at the root of his son's life. But now he feared more and more
to tell the Prince the story of those nine dreams, lest the knowledge
should indeed serve but as the crowning point of his sorrows, and
altogether break his heart for him.
Yet there was so much danger in leaving the thing untold that at last he
summoned the Prince to his bedside, meaning to tell him all. The King
had worn himself so ill with anxiety and grief in thinking over the
matter, that now to tell all was the only means of saving his life.
The Prince came and knelt down, and leaned his head on his father's
pillow; and the King whispered into his ear the story of the dreams, and
of how for his sake all the Prince's foster-sisters had been spirited
away.
Before his tale was done he could no longer bear to look into his son's
face, but closed his eyes, and, with long silences between, spoke as one
who prayed.
When he had ended he lay quite still, and the Prince kissed his closed
eyelids and went softly out of the room.
"Now I know," he said to himself; "now at last!" And he came through the
wood and knocked at his foster-mother's door. "Other mother," he said to
her, "give me a kiss for each of my sisters, for now I am going out into
the world to find them, to be rid of the sorrows in my heart."
"They can never be found!" she cried, but she kissed him nine times.
"And this," she said, "was Monica, and this was Ponica, and this was
Veronica," and so she went over every name. "But now they are only
names!" she wept, as she let him go.
He went along, and he went along, mile after mile. "Where may you be
going to, fair sir?" asked an old peasant, at whose cabin the Prince
sought shelter when night came to the first day of his wanderings.
"Truly," answered the Prince, "I do not know how far or whither I need
to go; but I have a finger-post in my heart that keeps pointing me."
So that night he stayed there, and the next day he went on.
"Where to so fast?" asked a woodcutter when the second night found him
in the thickest and loneliest parts of the forest. "Here the night is so
dark and the way so dangerous, one like you should not go alone."
"Nay, I know nothing," said the Prince, "only I feel like a weather-cock
in a wind that keeps turning me to its will!"
After many days he came to a small long valley rich in woods and
water-courses, but no road ran through it. More and more it seemed like
the world's end, a place unknown, or forgotten of its old inhabitants.
Just at the end of the valley, where the woods opened into clear slopes
and hollows towards the west, he saw before him, low and overgrown, the
walls of a little tumble-down grange. "There," he said to himself when
he saw it, "I can find shelter for to-night. Never have I felt so tired
before, or such a pain at my heart!"
Before long he came to a little gate, and a winding path that led in
among lawns and trees to the door of an old house. The house seemed as
if it had been once lived in, but there was no sign of any life about
it now. He pushed open the door, and suddenly there was a sharp rustling
of feathers, and nine white peahens rose up from the ground and flew out
of the window into the garden.
The Prince searched the whole house over, and found it a mere ruin; the
only signs of life to be seen were the white feathers that lifted and
blew about over the floors.
Outside, the garden was gathering itself together in the dusk, and the
peahens were stepping daintily about the lawns, picking here and there
between the blades of grass. They seemed to suit the gentle sadness of
the place, which had an air of grief that has grown at ease with itself.
The Prince went out into the garden, and walked about among the quietly
stepping birds; but they took no heed of him. They came picking up their
food between his very feet, as though he were not there. Silence held
all the air, and in the cleft of the valley the day drooped to its end.
Just before it grew dark, the nine white peahens gathered together at
the foot of a great elm, and lifting up their throats they wailed in
chorus. Their lamentable cry touched the Prince's heart; "Where," he
asked himself, "have I heard such sorrow before?" Then all with one
accord the birds sprang rustling up to the lowest boughs of the elm, and
settled themselves to roost.
The Prince went back to the house, to find some corner amid its
half-ruined rooms to sleep in. But there the air was close, and an
unpleasant smell of moisture came from the floor and walls: so, the
night being warm, he returned to the garden, and folding himself in his
cloak lay down under the tree where the nine peahens were at roost.
For a long time he tried to sleep, but could not, there was so much pain
and sorrow in his heart.
Presently when it was close upon midnight, over his head one of the
birds stirred and ruffled through all its feathers; and he heard a soft
voice say:
"Sisters, are you awake?"
All the other peahens lifted their heads, and turned towards the one
that had spoken, saying, "Yes, sister, we are awake."