There is nobody in all this world who knows so many tales as Olé
Luckoiè! He can tell tales! In an evening, when a child sits so nicely
at the table, or on its little stool, Olé Luckoiè comes. He comes
so quietly into the house, for he walks without shoes; he opens the
door without making any noise, and then he flirts sweet milk into the
children's eyes; but so gently, so very gently, that they cannot keep
their eyes open, and, therefore, they never see him; he steals softly
behind them and blows gently on their necks, and thus their heads
become heavy. Oh yes! But then it does them no harm; for Olé Luckoiè
means nothing but kindness to the children, he only wants to amuse
them; and the best thing that can be done is for somebody to carry them
to bed, where they may lie still and listen to the tales that he will
tell them.
Now when the children are asleep, Olé Luckoiè sits down on the bed;
he is very well dressed; his coat is of silk, but it is not possible
to tell what color it is, because it shines green, and red, and blue,
just as if one color ran into another. He holds an umbrella under each
arm; one of them is covered all over the inside with pictures, and
this he sets over the good child, and it dreams all night long the
most beautiful histories. The other umbrella has nothing at all within
it; this he sets over the heads of naughty children, and they sleep so
heavily, that next morning when they wake they have not dreamed the
least in the world.
Now we will hear how Olé Luckoiè came every evening for a whole week to
a little boy, whose name was Yalmar, and what he told him. There are
seven stories, because there are seven days in a week.