Once upon a time there lived a queen whose heart was sore because she
had no children. She was sad enough when her husband was at home with
her, but when he was away she would see nobody, but sat and wept all day
long.
Now it happened that a war broke out with the king of a neighbouring
country, and the queen was left in the palace alone.
She was so unhappy that she felt as if the walls would stifle her, so
she wandered out into the garden, and threw herself down on a grassy
bank, under the shade of a lime tree. She had been there for some time,
when a rustle among the leaves caused her to look up, and she saw an old
woman limping on her crutches towards the stream that flowed through the
grounds.
When she had quenched her thirst, she came straight up to the queen, and
said to her: ‘Do not take it evil, noble lady, that I dare to speak to
you, and do not be afraid of me, for it may be that I shall bring you
good luck.’
The queen looked at her doubtfully, and answered: ‘You do not seem as if
you had been very lucky yourself, or to have much good fortune to spare
for anyone else.’
‘Under rough bark lies smooth wood and sweet kernel,’ replied the old
woman. ‘Let me see your hand, that I may read the future.’
The queen held out her hand, and the old woman examined its lines
closely. Then she said, ‘Your heart is heavy with two sorrows, one old
and one new. The new sorrow is for your husband, who is fighting far
away from you; but, believe me, he is well, and will soon bring you
joyful news. But your other sorrow is much older than this. Your
happiness is spoilt because you have no children.’ At these words the
queen became scarlet, and tried to draw away her hand, but the old woman
said:
‘Have a little patience, for there are some things I want to see more
clearly.’
‘But who are you?’ asked the queen, ‘for you seem to be able to read my
heart.’
‘Never mind my name,’ answered she, ‘but rejoice that it is permitted to
me to show you a way to lessen your grief. You must, however, promise to
do exactly what I tell you, if any good is to come of it.’
‘Oh, I will obey you exactly,’ cried the queen, ‘and if you can help me
you shall have in return anything you ask for.’
The old woman stood thinking for a little: then she drew something from
the folds of her dress, and, undoing a number of wrappings, brought out
a tiny basket made of birch-bark. She held it out to the queen, saying,
‘In the basket you will find a bird’s egg. This you must be careful to
keep in a warm place for three months, when it will turn into a doll.
Lay the doll in a basket lined with soft wool, and leave it alone, for
it will not need any food, and by-and-by you will find it has grown to
be the size of a baby. Then you will have a baby of your own, and you
must put it by the side of the other child, and bring your husband to
see his son and daughter. The boy you will bring up yourself, but you
must entrust the little girl to a nurse. When the time comes to have
them christened you will invite me to be godmother to the princess, and
this is how you must send the invitation. Hidden in the cradle, you will
find a goose’s wing: throw this out of the window, and I will be with
you directly; but be sure you tell no one of all the things that have
befallen you.’
The queen was about to reply, but the old woman was already limping
away, and before she had gone two steps she had turned into a young
girl, who moved so quickly that she seemed rather to fly than to walk.
The queen, watching this transformation, could hardly believe her eyes,
and would have taken it all for a dream, had it not been for the basket
which she held in her hand. Feeling a different being from the poor
sad woman who had wandered into the garden so short a time before, she
hastened to her room, and felt carefully in the basket for the egg.
There it was, a tiny thing of soft blue with little green spots, and she
took it out and kept it in her bosom, which was the warmest place she
could think of.
A fortnight after the old woman had paid her visit, the king came home,
having conquered his enemies. At this proof that the old woman had
spoken truth, the queen’s heart bounded, for she now had fresh hopes
that the rest of the prophecy might be fulfilled.
She cherished the basket and the egg as her chiefest treasures, and had
a golden case made for the basket, so that when the time came to lay the
egg in it, it might not risk any harm.
Three months passed, and, as the old woman had bidden her, the queen
took the egg from her bosom, and laid it snugly amidst the warm woollen
folds. The next morning she went to look at it, and the first thing she
saw was the broken eggshell, and a little doll lying among the pieces.
Then she felt happy at last, and leaving the doll in peace to grow,
waited, as she had been told, for a baby of her own to lay beside it.
In course of time, this came also, and the queen took the little girl
out of the basket, and placed it with her son in a golden cradle which
glittered with precious stones. Next she sent for the king, who nearly
went mad with joy at the sight of the children.
Soon there came a day when the whole court was ordered to be present at
the christening of the royal babies, and when all was ready the queen
softly opened the window a little, and let the goose wing fly out.
The guests were coming thick and fast, when suddenly there drove up a
splendid coach drawn by six cream-coloured horses, and out of it stepped
a young lady dressed in garments that shone like the sun. Her face could
not be seen, for a veil covered her head, but as she came up to the
place where the queen was standing with the babies she drew the veil
aside, and everyone was dazzled with her beauty. She took the little
girl in her arms, and holding it up before the assembled company
announced that henceforward it would be known by the name of
Dotterine--a name which no one understood but the queen, who knew that
the baby had come from the yolk of an egg. The boy was called Willem.
After the feast was over and the guests were going away, the godmother
laid the baby in the cradle, and said to the queen, ‘Whenever the baby
goes to sleep, be sure you lay the basket beside her, and leave the
eggshells in it. As long as you do that, no evil can come to her; so
guard this treasure as the apple of your eye, and teach your daughter
to do so likewise.’ Then, kissing the baby three times, she mounted her
coach and drove away.
The children throve well, and Dotterine’s nurse loved her as if she
were the baby’s real mother. Every day the little girl seemed to grow
prettier, and people used to say she would soon be as beautiful as her
godmother, but no one knew, except the nurse, that at night, when the
child slept, a strange and lovely lady bent over her. At length she told
the queen what she had seen, but they determined to keep it as a secret
between themselves.
The twins were by this time nearly two years old, when the queen was
taken suddenly ill. All the best doctors in the country were sent for,
but it was no use, for there is no cure for death. The queen knew she
was dying, and sent for Dotterine and her nurse, who had now become
her lady-in-waiting. To her, as her most faithful servant, she gave the
lucky basket in charge, and besought her to treasure it carefully. ‘When
my daughter,’ said the queen, ‘is ten years old, you are to hand it over
to her, but warn her solemnly that her whole future happiness depends on
the way she guards it. About my son, I have no fears. He is the heir of
the kingdom, and his father will look after him.’ The lady-in-waiting
promised to carry out the queen’s directions, and above all to keep the
affair a secret. And that same morning the queen died.
After some years the king married again, but he did not love his second
wife as he had done his first, and had only married her for reasons of
ambition. She hated her step-children, and the king, seeing this, kept
them out of the way, under the care of Dotterine’s old nurse. But if
they ever strayed across the path of the queen, she would kick them out
of her sight like dogs.
On Dotterine’s tenth birthday her nurse handed her over the cradle, and
repeated to her her mother’s dying words; but the child was too young to
understand the value of such a gift, and at first thought little about
it.
Two more years slipped by, when one day during the king’s absence the
stepmother found Dotterine sitting under a lime tree. She fell as
usual into a passion, and beat the child so badly that Dotterine went
staggering to her own room. Her nurse was not there, but suddenly, as
she stood weeping, her eyes fell upon the golden case in which lay the
precious basket. She thought it might contain something to amuse her,
and looked eagerly inside, but nothing was there save a handful of wool
and two empty eggshells. Very much disappointed, she lifted the wool,
and there lay the goose’s wing. ‘What old rubbish,’ said the child to
herself, and, turning, threw the wing out of the open window.
In a moment a beautiful lady stood beside her. ‘Do not be afraid,’ said
the lady, stroking Dotterine’s head. ‘I am your godmother, and have come
to pay you a visit. Your red eyes tell me that you are unhappy. I know
that your stepmother is very unkind to you, but be brave and patient,
and better days will come. She will have no power over you when you are
grown up, and no one else can hurt you either, if only you are careful
never to part from your basket, or to lose the eggshells that are in it.
Make a silken case for the little basket, and hide it away in your dress
night and day and you will be safe from your stepmother and anyone that
tries to harm you. But if you should happen to find yourself in any
difficulty, and cannot tell what to do, take the goose’s wing from the
basket, and throw it out of the window, and in a moment I will come to
help you. Now come into the garden, that I may talk to you under the
lime trees, where no one can hear us.’
They had so much to say to each other, that the sun was already setting
when the godmother had ended all the good advice she wished to give the
child, and saw it was time for her to be going. ‘Hand me the basket,’
said she, ‘for you must have some supper. I cannot let you go hungry to
bed.’
Then, bending over the basket, she whispered some magic words, and
instantly a table covered with fruits and cakes stood on the ground
before them. When they had finished eating, the godmother led the child
back, and on the way taught her the words she must say to the basket
when she wanted it to give her something.
In a few years more, Dotterine was a grown-up young lady, and those who
saw her thought that the world did not contain so lovely a girl.
About this time a terrible war broke out, and the king and his army were
beaten back and back, till at length they had to retire into the town,
and make ready for a siege. It lasted so long that food began to fail,
and even in the palace there was not enough to eat.
So one morning Dotterine, who had had neither supper nor breakfast,
and was feeling very hungry, let her wing fly away. She was so weak and
miserable, that directly her godmother appeared she burst into tears,
and could not speak for some time.
‘Do not cry so, dear child,’ said the godmother. ‘I will carry you away
from all this, but the others I must leave to take their chance.’ Then,
bidding Dotterine follow her, she passed through the gates of the town,
and through the army outside, and nobody stopped them, or seemed to see
them.
The next day the town surrendered, and the king and all his courtiers
were taken prisoners, but in the confusion his son managed to make his
escape. The queen had already met her death from a spear carelessly
thrown.
As soon as Dotterine and her godmother were clear of the enemy,
Dotterine took off her own clothes, and put on those of a peasant,
and in order to disguise her better her godmother changed her face
completely. ‘When better times come,’ her protectress said cheerfully,
‘and you want to look like yourself again, you have only to whisper the
words I have taught you into the basket, and say you would like to have
your own face once more, and it will be all right in a moment. But you
will have to endure a little longer yet.’ Then, warning her once more to
take care of the basket, the lady bade the girl farewell.
For many days Dotterine wandered from one place to another without
finding shelter, and though the food which she got from the basket
prevented her from starving, she was glad enough to take service in a
peasant’s house till brighter days dawned. At first the work she had
to do seemed very difficult, but either she was wonderfully quick in
learning, or else the basket may have secretly helped her. Anyhow at the
end of three days she could do everything as well as if she had cleaned
pots and swept rooms all her life.
One morning Dotterine was busy scouring a wooden tub, when a noble lady
happened to pass through the village. The girl’s bright face as she
stood in the front of the door with her tub attracted the lady, and she
stopped and called the girl to come and speak to her.
‘Would you not like to come and enter my service?’ she asked.
‘Very much,’ replied Dotterine, ‘if my present mistress will allow me.’
‘Oh, I will settle that,’ answered the lady; and so she did, and the
same day they set out for the lady’s house, Dotterine sitting beside the
coachman.
Six months went by, and then came the joyful news that the king’s son
had collected an army and had defeated the usurper who had taken his
father’s place, but at the same moment Dotterine learned that the old
king had died in captivity. The girl wept bitterly for his loss, but in
secrecy, as she had told her mistress nothing about her past life.
At the end of a year of mourning, the young king let it be known that he
intended to marry, and commanded all the maidens in the kingdom to come
to a feast, so that he might choose a wife from among them. For weeks
all the mothers and all the daughters in the land were busy preparing
beautiful dresses and trying new ways of putting up their hair, and the
three lovely daughters of Dotterine’s mistress were as much excited as
the rest. The girl was clever with her fingers, and was occupied all day
with getting ready their smart clothes, but at night when she went to
bed she always dreamed that her godmother bent over her and said, ‘Dress
your young ladies for the feast, and when they have started follow them
yourself. Nobody will be so fine as you.’
When the great day came, Dotterine could hardly contain herself, and
when she had dressed her young mistresses and seen them depart with
their mother she flung herself on her bed, and burst into tears. Then
she seemed to hear a voice whisper to her, ‘Look in your basket, and you
will find in it everything that you need.’
Dotterine did not want to be told twice! Up she jumped, seized her
basket, and repeated the magic words, and behold! there lay a dress on
the bed, shining as a star. She put it on with fingers that trembled
with joy, and, looking in the glass, was struck dumb at her own beauty.
She went downstairs, and in front of the door stood a fine carriage,
into which she stepped and was driven away like the wind.
The king’s palace was a long way off, yet it seemed only a few minutes
before Dotterine drew up at the great gates. She was just going to
alight, when she suddenly remembered she had left her basket behind her.
What was she to do? Go back and fetch it, lest some ill-fortune should
befall her, or enter the palace and trust to chance that nothing evil
would happen? But before she could decide, a little swallow flew up with
the basket in its beak, and the girl was happy again.
The feast was already at its height, and the hall was brilliant with
youth and beauty, when the door was flung wide and Dotterine entered,
making all the other maidens look pale and dim beside her. Their hopes
faded as they gazed, but their mothers whispered together, saying,
‘Surely this is our lost princess!’
The young king did not know her again, but he never left her side nor
took his eyes from her. And at midnight a strange thing happened. A
thick cloud suddenly filled the hall, so that for a moment all was dark.
Then the mist suddenly grew bright, and Dotterine’s godmother was seen
standing there.
‘This,’ she said, turning to the king, ‘is the girl whom you have always
believed to be your sister, and who vanished during the siege. She is
not your sister at all, but the daughter of the king of a neighbouring
country, who was given to your mother to bring up, to save her from the
hands of a wizard.’
Then she vanished, and was never seen again, nor the wonder-working
basket either; but now that Dotterine’s troubles were over she could get
on without them, and she and the young king lived happily together till
the end of their days.
(Ehstnische Marchen.)