himself on the top of a high crag and saw, not far away, a great castle.
“I wonder to whom that castle belongs,” said he.
He went nearer and climbed into a tree to get a better view of it. While
he was looking, behold, a number of dragons came out. He counted them,
and there were forty-nine. They left the door open and went away out of
sight. So he climbed down from the tree and went to the castle, where he
walked about from room to room and saw that it contained a vast amount
of treasure. Into his bag he put as much gold as he could carry and
hurried away with it, fearful that the dragons would catch him.
When they came back they perceived that some of their money was gone,
and henceforth they determined that one of them should stay behind in
the castle when the others went out.
The man returned home and said to his wife: “God has taken pity on us.
See, here we have enough gold to make us rich,” and he opened his bag
and showed her the golden money he had brought.
On the following day he purchased a house and moved his family into it.
“But let us continue to live simply,” said he to his wife. “We will buy
what we need and avoid extravagance.”
“Yes,” said she, “that is best. I do not forget how recently I have been
glad to give the children milk soup to drink to save them from
starving.”
For two months they lived happily, and had plenty to eat, and gave
generously to the poor. Then the wife of the older brother came to visit
them, for she had heard that they were well off now. Her own family, on
the contrary, had begun to suffer misfortune. Their sheep had died,
their crops had failed, and unseasonable frosts had ruined their fruit
trees.
The wife of the younger brother did not feel any ill will toward her
visitor because of the way she had been treated in the days of her
misery, and she welcomed her heartily, and gave her the best seat, and
set before her the choicest food in the house. This was very different
from the treatment that had been accorded her, for the older brother’s
wife used to receive her in the kitchen and never asked her to sit down.
After some time the visitor said: “Sister, pray tell me where your
husband has found work, that my husband may if possible get work there
also. We have been unfortunate of late and are in great want.”
“My husband has not got any employment,” responded the other. “You
remember when I was last at your house and you made me wash my hands.
That day he went to the mountains and found a castle where he got a lot
of gold.”
“Would he take my husband to that castle?” asked the former rich woman.
“Perhaps we too may thus gain relief.”
“He will do what he can for you, I am sure,” said the other. “If your
husband will bring a bag tomorrow he will show him the way. He does not
wish to get any more treasure for himself because he thinks we already
have enough.”
The next morning the older brother came with a bag under his arm and
said: “Good morrow, brother, how do you do? I hope you are well.”
Hitherto, if he saw his brother, he looked the other way, or turned
aside, lest he should be asked for help. But the former poor man
welcomed him and said: “It gives me joy to have you enter my house, for
I have very seldom had the pleasure of seeing you.”
“Things have gone badly with me,” said the older brother, “and now I
know not what to do.”
“Well,” said the other, “we will go to the mountains, and very likely
you will have the luck to get as rich as ever.”
So they started off together, and when they came to where they could see
the castle the younger brother showed his companion the tree from which
he had watched the castle. “Climb up among the branches,” said he, “and
wait till the dragons that dwell in the castle come out. Count them. If
forty-nine come forth you can descend and enter the castle free from
fear. But unless the entire forty-nine leave, do not go in.”
[Illustration:
While he was looking a number of dragons came out
]
With these words he turned his steps toward home. His brother watched
eagerly from the tree, and by and by he saw the dragons coming forth,
and he counted them. But he counted wrong, and instead of saying
forty-eight he said forty-nine. Then he scrambled down from the tree,
hurried to the castle, and looked about, seeking the treasure, that he
might fill his bag. Suddenly he heard a voice say, “So you are the thief
and have come back to steal more of our gold!”
He found himself confronted by a dragon that had come out of a near-by
room where it had been staying on guard. Immediately it bit off his
head, and took both the body and the head and hung them at the entrance
to the castle. When the other dragons came home he said to them: “There
is no need to keep watch any longer. I have killed the thief and hung
him up where he will serve as a warning to all other thieves that may
approach our castle.”
After that none of the dragons stayed at home, but each day they went
out together.
Two days passed, and the wife of the former rich man got uneasy because
her husband did not return. She went to the house of her brother-in-law,
and when she told him that her husband had not come back he said he
would go and seek him. Off he went, and as soon as he drew near to the
castle he climbed the tree and looked and saw his brother’s body hanging
at the entrance. Then he waited till the dragons came out. He counted
them with great care, and there were forty-nine. After they had gone
from sight he went and got his brother’s body and put it in a bag that
lay near the entrance. It was the very bag his brother had brought to
contain the gold he hoped to get.
The younger brother carried his burden home and sent for his
sister-in-law. When she came and saw her dead husband she wept and would
not be comforted. At last she said: “We must get a tailor to sew him
together. I cannot bury him like that, in two pieces.”
So the man went out and got a tailor, who sewed the head on to the body,
and afterward the burial took place. Then the younger brother gave his
sister-in-law some money, and said, “Go and provide for yourself and
your children, and if you are in want again, do not hesitate to come and
ask me for what you need.”
Meanwhile the dragons had returned to their castle and found the dead
man gone. “So the thief had an accomplice!” they exclaimed. “We must
destroy him also.”
The chief dragon was a powerful magician, and the next day he assumed
the form of a man, and went to the town to try to discover who had come
to their castle and removed the body with its severed head. While he was
loitering about, uncertain how to get the desired information, he
concluded he would go to a tailor and have a suit of clothes made. The
tailor took his measure, and the dragon said: “Now mind you sew the
seams well so the stitches won’t come out. You must do a careful job, or
I will not pay you. It’s not often I have a nice suit made, and I am
particular. Use good strong thread and—”
“Stop!” cried the tailor with rising anger. “There is no need for you to
make such a fuss. Why, yesterday I had to sew together a dead man whose
head had been separated from his body. His relations were entirely
satisfied with the way I did the difficult task. If I can do a job like
that so well, in spite of the fact that it was out of my line, you can
be assured I have the skill to make you a satisfactory suit. So have
done with your advising, or you will drive me crazy.”
“Do you know the person who hired you to sew the dead man?” asked the
dragon.
“Of course I do,” answered the tailor. “He lives near by. If you like, I
will point out his house, and you can go in and ask him whether the body
was well sewed or not.”
So he took the dragon a little way along the street and showed him where
the brother of the dead man dwelt. But instead of going into the house,
the dragon went to a carpenter’s shop and ordered forty-eight chests,
each just big enough to contain one of the dragons. When the chests were
finished he had them sent to a lonely spot outside of the town, and
thither he summoned his dragons. They got into the chests, and he hired
wagons to bring the chests to the house of the dead man’s brother. He
himself went on ahead, and toward evening he found the former poor man
seated in his doorway. “Sir,” said he, “I have had forty-eight chests
sent to me. You can see them coming down the street on those wagons.
Would you be so kind as to let me leave them in your yard for the
night?”
“You are welcome to leave them there for the night,” said the man, “and
as much longer as suits your convenience.”
After the wagons had been unloaded and the dragon chief had gone, the
man’s children began climbing about and jumping on the chests. The
dragons who were inside groaned from time to time, and said, “Ah, would
it were dark that we might eat them all.”
Presently the children took notice of the groanings and the words, and
they ran to their father and said: “Those chests are bewitched. They are
talking.”
The man thought a moment and said, “Forty-eight, and the one that
brought them makes forty-nine!”
Then he went to the chests and put his ear to one of the keyholes. He
heard the direful words and the groaning, and he said to himself, “Now
that I have you monsters in my power I’ll make sure of you.”
So off he went and bought some iron rods, heated them red hot in his
kitchen fire, and one by one thrust them into the chests until he had
killed all the forty-eight dragons. That done, he called his servant,
opened one of the chests, and said: “My man, look here. Some one has
played us a trick and put a dragon in this chest. If I had not killed
the creature it would have devoured us all. Take it and throw it into
the sea.”
The servant lifted it on his back, went to the seashore, which was not
far away, and threw the creature down where the rising tide would soon
carry it away. Then he went home, but while he was gone his master had
opened another chest. The man had his servant look in, and said: “Here
is the dragon. Surely you did not throw it far enough out into the sea,
else how would it have returned?”
Again the servant carried a dragon to the shore, and once more returned
to find what was apparently the same dead dragon. His master kept him
going nearly all night, and when he made the trip with the forty-eighth
dragon he was so exasperated that he waded right into the sea and cast
it out as far as he could. When he returned home, he said, “Master, is
it back?”
“No,” the man answered, “it has not come back. You must have thrown it
in very deep.”
Next morning the chief dragon came, and he was a good deal perturbed,
because he had expected his dragons would destroy the family of the
former poor man, and then join their chief before daylight at an
appointed spot outside of the town. “I find that one of your chests is
open and empty,” the man informed the dragon.
He led the way to the yard, and when the dragon bent over to look into
the chest the man seized him and pushed him inside, slammed down the
cover, and locked it. Then he ran for a red-hot iron, and soon the last
of the dragons had perished.
The castle among the mountains was now without an owner, and the man
took possession of it and lived there as happy as a prince—and may
whoever reads this story, or hears it read, live happier still.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS
THERE was once a poor man who had four sons, and when they were grown
up, he said to them: “Dear children, you must go out into the world now,
for I have nothing to give you. It is my wish that you should each learn
a trade by which you can gain a comfortable livelihood, if not wealth.”
So the four brothers took their walking-staffs in their hands, bid their
father good-by, and tramped away down the street and passed out of the
town gate. After they had traveled some distance, they came to where
four roads branched away from the one they were tramping. “Here we must
part,” said the eldest brother, “but four years from this day we will
meet here again, and tell each other what we have accomplished.”
Then each went his own way, and the eldest presently met a man, who
asked him where he was going and what he intended to do.
“I want to learn a trade,” the youth answered.
“Then come with me and learn to be a thief,” said the man.
“No,” responded the youth, “that is no longer considered an honorable
employment; and in the end I should swing as the clapper in the field
bell.”
“Oh, you need not fear the gallows!” said the man. “I will only teach
you how to take things that no one else wants or knows how to get hold
of, and I will make you so expert that nobody can find you out.”
So the youth allowed himself to be persuaded, and he became, under the
man’s instruction, such a clever thief that nothing was safe from him
which he had once made up his mind to have.
Meanwhile the second brother had met a man who put the same question to
him as to whither he was going and what he intended to do.
“I don’t know yet,” answered the youth.
“Then come with me and be a star-gazer,” the man advised. “It is the
grandest trade in the world, for you gain the power to see everything.”
The youth was pleased with the idea, and he became such an expert
star-gazer that, when he finished his apprenticeship, his master gave
him a telescope, and said, “With this you can see all that happens in
the sky and on the earth, and nothing can remain hidden from you.”
The third brother was taken in hand by a huntsman, and received such
instruction in the art of shooting that he became a first-rate marksman.
When he had learned all there was to learn and was ready to depart, his
master presented him with a gun, and said, “Whatever you aim at with
this gun you will hit without fail.”
The youngest brother met a man who asked him if he would like to be a
tailor.
“I don’t know about that,” said the youth. “I haven’t much fancy for
sitting cross-legged from morning till night, and everlastingly pulling
a needle in and out.”
“There, there!” said the man, “you don’t know what you are talking
about. You will find that tailoring as I teach it is easy. It will be
pleasant to you and win you honor.”
The youth allowed himself to be persuaded, and went with the man, who
taught him tailoring very thoroughly. At length the time came for him to
depart, and his master gave him a needle and said, “With that you will
be able to stitch anything, even a thing as tender as an egg-shell, or
one as hard as steel, and no seam will be visible after you are
through.”
On the very day that the four years agreed on came to an end the four
brothers met at the place where they had parted, and after embracing
each other they hurried home to their father.
“Well,” said he, quite pleased to see them, “so the wind has blown you
back to me.”
They sat under a big tree in the yard and told him all that had happened
to them. When they finished, their father said, “Now I will put your
accomplishments to the test, and see what you can do.”
He looked up into the tree and said to his second son: “There is a
chaffinch’s nest up there on the topmost branch. Tell me how many eggs
there are in it.”
The star-gazer took his telescope, looked through it, and said, “There
are five.”
“Fetch the eggs down,” said the father to his eldest son, “and be
careful not to disturb the mother bird, who is sitting on them.”
The cunning thief climbed the tree, and removed the five eggs from
underneath the bird so deftly that she never noticed what he had done,
and he brought them down to his father. The father took them and put one
on each corner of a table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the
huntsman, “You must cut all those eggs in half at one shot.”
The huntsman aimed and divided each egg in half at one shot, as his
father desired. He certainly must have had some of the powder that
shoots round a corner. The eggs had little birds in them, and the neck
of each had been severed by the bullet.
“Now it is your turn,” said the father to the fourth son. “I expect you
to sew the birds and the shells together so they will be none the worse
for that shot.”
The tailor produced his needle, and stitched away as his father had
desired. When he finished the task, the thief climbed the tree with the
eggs, and put them back under the bird without her perceiving him. The
bird continued to sit on the eggs, and a few days later the fledgelings
crept out of the shells. Each had a red streak round its neck where the
tailor had sewn them together, but were none the worse otherwise.
“I can certainly praise your skill,” said the father to his sons. “You
have used your time well while you have been away, and you have all
acquired very useful knowledge.”
Not long after this a great lamentation was made in the country because
the king’s daughter had been carried away by a dragon. The king was
overcome by grief and sorrowed for her day and night, and he had it
proclaimed that whoever rescued the princess should have her for his
wife.
The four brothers said to one another, “This will be an opportunity for
us to show what we can do;” and they agreed to sally forth together to
deliver the princess.
“I will soon discover where she is,” said the star-gazer.
He looked through his telescope, and said: “I see her already. She is a
long way from here, sitting on a rock in the middle of the sea, and the
dragon is there watching her.”
Then they went to the king, who, at their request, furnished them with a
ship, in which they sailed away over the sea till they approached the
rock. The princess was sitting there, and the dragon was asleep with his
head on her lap.
“I dare not shoot,” said the hunter, “for fear I should kill the
princess as well as the dragon.”
“Then I will try my luck,” said the thief, and he rowed a boat to the
rock and took the princess away so lightly and stealthily that the
monster continued to sleep and snore.
The thief got the princess safely on board the ship, and, full of joy,
the brothers spread the sails to the wind, and steered for the open sea.
But the dragon soon awoke, and when he realized that the princess was
gone, he started in pursuit of the ship, flapping through the air at his
best speed, snapping his tail savagely, and foaming at the mouth with
rage. Just as he was hovering over the ship about to plunge down on it,
the huntsman took aim with his unerring gun and shot the dragon through
the heart. The monster was killed instantly, but his huge body fell on
the ship and smashed it to pieces.
[Illustration]
The brothers and the princess managed each to grasp a plank and thus
kept themselves afloat. They were in great straits, but the tailor was
equal to the emergency. With his wonderful needle he sewed together the
planks on which he and his companions were sustaining themselves, and
then they paddled about and collected all the other floating fragments
of the ship. The tailor stitched them together so cleverly that in a
short time the ship was seaworthy once more, and they sailed happily
home.
When the king saw his dear daughter again, he was very glad, and said to
the four brothers, “One of you shall marry her, but you must settle
among yourselves which one that shall be.”
They discussed the matter with a good deal of warmth, for each pressed
his own claims. The star-gazer said: “Had I not discovered the princess
all your doings would have been in vain. Therefore, she is mine.”
The thief said: “What would have been the good of discovering her if I
had not stolen her away from the dragon? So she is mine.”
The huntsman said: “But you all would have been destroyed by the monster
had not my ball reached his heart. So she must be mine.”
“That is all very fine,” said the tailor, “but if it had not been for my
sewing the wreck together, you would all have been miserably drowned.
Therefore the princess is mine.”
When they had all voiced their claims to the princess, the king said:
“Each of you is equally entitled to her, but since you cannot all have
her, none of you shall have her. Instead, I will reward you each with
half a province.”
The brothers were quite satisfied with this decision, and said, “It is
better so than that we should quarrel.”
So each of them received half a province, and they lived happily in the
home of their father the rest of their days.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE YOUTH WITHOUT FEAR
THERE was once a father who had two sons. One was ambitious, and
sensible, and clever enough to do almost anything. But the younger one
was so stupid he made no progress at all. When people saw how useless he
was, they said, “His father will have plenty of trouble with him.”
If there was any task that needed doing, it fell to the lot of the elder
son, who never failed to do his work faithfully and well, unless his
father asked him to fetch something in the evening after dark. Then, if
the errand would compel him to pass through the churchyard or along a
dismal stretch of roadway, he would say: “Oh no, father, I cannot go! I
am afraid. It would make me shiver and shake.”
Occasionally when the household gathered around the fire after supper,
with very likely the company of a neighbor or two, some one would tell a
ghost story which would cause the listeners’ flesh to creep, and they
would exclaim, “How you make me shiver!”
The youngest son, however, as he sat in the corner and heard these
exclamations, could not imagine what was meant. “There’s something queer
about it,” said he. “They say: ‘It makes me shiver! It makes me shiver!’
But it doesn’t make me shiver a bit. Shivering is an accomplishment I
don’t understand.”
One day his father said to him, “Listen, you lad in the corner there,
you are growing big and strong. You must learn some trade by which to
get a living. See how your brother works, but you are not worth your
salt.”
“Well, father,” he responded, “I am quite ready to learn something. With
what shall I begin? I would very much like to learn how to shiver and
shake, for about that I know nothing.”
The elder son laughed when he heard him speak thus. “Good heavens!” he
thought, “what a simpleton my brother is! He will never be good for
anything as long as he lives.”
His father sighed and said, “What shivering means you may learn easily
enough, but such knowledge will not help you any in getting your bread.”
Soon afterward the sexton called at the house, and the father confided
to him his anxiety about his younger son. “It is quite evident,” said
he, “that the lad will never be any credit to us. Would you believe that
when I asked him how he was going to earn his living, he said he would
like to learn to shiver and shake?”
“If that’s what he wants to learn,” said the sexton, “we can easily
gratify him. I can teach him that myself. Just let him serve me for a
while and I’ll put the polish on him.”
The father was pleased, for he thought, “Anyhow the lad will gain
something by the experience.”
So the sexton took the youth home with him, and he had to ring the
church bells. A few days passed, and the sexton woke him at midnight and
told him to get up and go to the church tower to ring the bells. “You
shall soon be taught how to shiver and shake,” thought the sexton as he
hastened to the belfry ahead of the lad, and crept stealthily up the
stairs.
The youth arrived a few minutes later and stumbled along up the stairway
in the darkness. He was about to grasp the bell rope when he observed a
white figure standing at the head of the stairs. “Who is there?” he
called out, but the figure neither stirred nor spoke.
“Answer!” cried the lad, “or get out of the way. You have no business
here in the night.”
But the sexton wanted the boy to think he was a ghost, and he did not
stir.
The lad called out a second time: “What do you want here? Speak, if you
are an honest fellow, or I’ll throw you down the stairs.”
“He never would dare undertake such a thing,” thought the sexton. So he
made no sound and stood as still as if he were made of stone.
Once more the lad threatened the shrouded figure, and as he got no
answer he sprang forward and threw the ghost down the stairs. The
apparition bumped along down the steps and lay motionless in a corner.
Then the lad rang the bells, walked home, and without saying a word to
anybody went to bed. Soon he was fast asleep.
The sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but he did not
come, and at last she became anxious and woke up the lad. “Do you know
what has become of my husband?” she asked. “He went up into the church
tower in front of you.”
“No,” answered the lad; “but there was somebody standing at the head of
the stairs in the belfry, and as he would neither reply nor go away, I
thought he was a rogue and I threw him downstairs. Go and see if he was
your husband. I should be sorry if he was.”