A peasant, named John Wilde, found one time a glass shoe on one of the
hills where the little people used to dance. He clapped it instantly
into his pocket and ran away with it, keeping his hand as close on
his pocket as if he had a dove in it, for he knew that he had found a
treasure which the underground people must redeem at any price.
Others say that John Wilde lay in ambush one night for the underground
people, and gained an opportunity of pulling off one of their shoes,
by stretching himself there with a brandy-bottle beside him, and
acting like one that was dead drunk; for he was a very cunning man,
not over scrupulous in his morals, and had taken in many a one by his
craftiness, and, on this account, his name was in no good repute among
his neighbours, who, to say the truth, were willing to have as little
to do with him as possible. Many hold, too, that he was acquainted with
forbidden arts, and used to carry on an intercourse with the fiends and
old women that raised storms, and such like.
However, be this as it may, when John had gotten the shoe, he lost no
time in letting the folk that dwell under the ground know that he had
it. So at midnight he went to the Nine-hills, and cried with all his
might, “John Wilde of Rodenkirchen has got a beautiful glass shoe. Who
will buy it, who will buy it?” For he knew that the little one who had
lost the shoe must go barefoot till he got it again, and that is no
trifle, for the little people have generally to walk upon very hard and
stony ground.
John’s advertisement was speedily attended to. The little fellow who
had lost the shoe made no delay in setting about redeeming it. The
first free day he got, that he might come out into the daylight, he
came as a respectable merchant, and knocked at John Wilde’s door, and
asked if John had not a glass shoe to sell. “For,” says he, “they are
an article now in great demand, and are sought for in every market.”
John replied that it was true he had a very little little, nice, pretty
little glass shoe, but it was so small that even a dwarf’s foot would
be squeezed in it, and that God Almighty must make people on purpose
for it before it could be of any use, but that, for all that, it was an
extraordinary shoe and a valuable shoe, and a dear shoe, and it was not
every merchant that could afford to pay for it.
The merchant asked to see it, and when he had examined it, “Glass
shoes” said he, “are not by any means such rare articles, my good
friend, as you think here in Rodenkirchen, because you do not happen to
go much into the world. However,” said he, after hemming a little, “I
will give you a good price for it, because I happen to have the very
fellow of it.” And he bid the countryman a thousand dollars for it.
“A thousand dollars are money, my father used to say when he drove fat
oxen to market,” replied John Wilde, in a mocking tone; “but it will
not leave my hands for that shabby price, and, for my own part, it may
ornament the foot of my daughter’s doll. Harkye, friend; I have heard
a sort of little song sung about the glass shoe, and it is not for a
parcel of dirt that it will go out of my hands. Tell me now, my good
fellow, should you happen to know the knack of it, that in every furrow
I make when I am ploughing I should find a ducat. If not, the shoe is
still mine, and you may inquire for glass shoes at those other markets.”
The merchant made still a great many attempts, and twisted and turned
in every direction to get the shoe, but when he found the farmer
inflexible he agreed to what John desired, and swore to the performance
of it.
Cunning John believed in him, and gave him up the glass shoe, for he
knew right well with whom he had to do. So the business being ended,
away went the merchant with his glass shoe.
Without a moment’s delay, John repaired to his stable, got ready his
horses and his plough, and drove out to the field. He selected a piece
of ground where he would have the shortest turns possible, and began to
plough. Hardly had the plough turned up the first sod, when up sprang a
ducat out of the ground, and it was the same with every fresh furrow he
made. There was now no end of his ploughing, and John Wilde soon bought
eight new horses, and put them into the stable to the eight he already
had--and their mangers were never without plenty of oats in them--that
he might be able every two hours to yoke two fresh horses, and so be
enabled to drive them the faster.
John was now insatiable in ploughing, every morning he was out before
sunrise, and many a time he ploughed on till after midnight. Summer and
winter it was plough, plough with him evermore, except when the ground
was frozen as hard as a stone. But he always ploughed by himself, and
never suffered any one to go out with him, or to come to him when he
was at work, for John understood too well the nature of his crop to let
people see what it was he ploughed so constantly for.
But it fared far worse with himself than with his horses, who ate
good oats and were regularly changed and relieved, while he grew
pale and meagre by reason of his continual working and toiling. His
wife and children had no longer any comfort of him, he never went to
the ale-house or the club, he withdrew himself from every one, and
scarcely ever spoke a single word, but went about silent and wrapped up
in his own thoughts. All the day long he toiled for his ducats, and at
night he had to count them and to plan and meditate how he might find
out a still swifter kind of plough.
His wife and the neighbours lamented over his strange conduct, his
dulness and melancholy, and began to think that he was grown foolish.
Everybody pitied his wife and children, for they imagined that the
numerous horses that he kept in his stable, and the preposterous mode
of agriculture that he pursued, with his unnecessary and superfluous
ploughing, must soon leave him without house or land.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
But their anticipations were not fulfilled. True it is, the poor man
never enjoyed a happy or contented hour since he began to plough the
ducats up out of the ground. The old saying held good in his case,
that he who gives himself up to the pursuit of gold is half way in the
claws of the evil one. Flesh and blood cannot bear perpetual labour,
and John Wilde did not long hold out against this running through the
furrows day and night. He got through the first spring, but one day, in
the second, he dropped down at the tail of the plough like an exhausted
November fly. Out of the pure thirst after gold he was wasted away and
dried up to nothing whereas he had been a very strong and hearty man
the day the shoe of the little underground man fell into his hands.
His wife, however, found after him a considerable treasure, two great
nailed up chests full of good new ducats, and his sons purchased large
estates for themselves, and became lords and noblemen. But what good
did all that do poor John Wilde.
[Illustration: John understood too well the nature of his crop]
* * * * *
“And now,” said the King, “we come to our last story, and I think it
shall be told us by the fairy who comes from the furthest North.”
Several dwarfs and Elves started up at this word, but the King
signalled them back to their places; “No,” he said, “none of you is
the one from farthest North.” Then slowly up the middle of the circle
came a quaint little figure all in white with long white hair and
beard--looking, only of course the idea is ridiculous, like an _old_
fairy. He had come from the land of perpetual winter, where everything
is white as the everlasting snow, but though he looked old he was
lively and youthful as the most frolicsome of the flower fairies there.
He skipped briskly on to the stool, then passing his hand down his long
white beard--strange guest where all was so brilliantly coloured--he
began a story which he named
[Illustration: The dwarf from the North]
[Illustration: What should he see but a big white bear]