"let me make you a little present," and he handed her a tablecloth.
"There," says he, "if you marry Hookedy-Crookedy, as long as you have
this tablecloth, you will never want eating and drinking of the
best."
The other two sisters grabbed to get the tablecloth from her but Jack
put out his hands and pushed them back.
At dinner time the next day Jack came in the dress in which he had
gone into the second battle, and with the mare he cleared the walls as
on the day before.
The King was enraged at the gate-keepers and began to scold them, but
Jack laughed at them and said a trifle like that was nothing to him or
his mare.
After dinner was over the King asked what he thought of his two
daughters and their husbands.
Jack said they were very good, and asked him if he had any more
daughters in his family.
The King said, "I have no more except one who won't do as I wish and
who has fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in my garden,
and I ordered her never to come into my sight."
But Jack said he would very much like to see her.
The King said that on Jack's account he would break his vow and let
her come in. So the Yellow Rose was brought in, and Jack fell to
chatting with her. He did all he could to make her fall in love with
him, and told her of all his great wealth and possessions and offered
himself to her, and said if she only would marry him she should live
in ease and luxury and happiness all the days of her life, as she
never could do with Hookedy-Crookedy.
But Yellow Rose got very angry, and said: "I won't sit here and listen
to such things," and she got up to leave the room.
"Well," says Jack, "I admire your spirit, and before you go let me
make you a little present."
So he handed her a purse. "Here," says he, "is a purse, and all the
days yourself and Hookedy-Crookedy live you will never want for money,
for that purse will never be empty."
Her sisters made a grab to snatch it from her, but Jack shoved them
back, and went out. And Jack rode away with the mare after dinner and
left her in the wood.
When he came back to his garden he always came in the
Hookedy-Crookedy shape and always pretended he had been off on a
message for the King.
The third day he went to the wood again. He dressed in the suit in
which he had gone to the first battle, and when he came back he went
to the castle and cleared the walls, and when the King scolded the
gate-keepers Jack told him never to mind, as that was a small trifle
to him and his mare.
A very grand dinner indeed Jack had this day, and when they chatted
after dinner the King asked him how he liked his two daughters and
their husbands.
He said he liked them very well, and asked him if he had any more
daughters in his family.
The King said no, except one foolish one who wouldn't do as he wished,
and who had fallen in love with an ugly, crooked, wee fellow in his
garden, and she was never to come within his sight again.
Says Jack, "I would like to see that girl."
The King said he could not refuse Jack any request he made; so he sent
for the Yellow Rose. When she came in, Jack fell into chat with her,
and did his very, very best to make her fall in love with him. But it
was of no use. He told her of all his wealth and all his grand
possessions, and said if she would marry him she should own all these,
and all the days she should live she should be the happiest woman in
the wide world, but if she married Hookedy-Crookedy, he said, she
would never be free from want and hardships, besides having an ugly
husband.
If the Yellow Rose was in a rage on the two days before, she was in a
far greater rage now. She said she wouldn't sit there to listen. She
told Jack that Hookedy-Crookedy was in her eyes a far more handsome
and beautiful man than he or than any king's son she had ever seen.
She said to Jack, that if he were ten times as handsome and a hundred
times as wealthy, she wouldn't give Hookedy-Crookedy's little finger
for himself or for all his wealth and possessions, and then she got up
to leave the room.
"Well," says Jack, says he, "I admire your spirit very much and," says
he, "I would like to make you a little present. Here is a comb," he
said, "and it will comb out of your hair a bushel of gold and a bushel
of silver every time you comb with it, and, besides," says he, "it
will make handsome the ugliest man that ever was."
When the other sisters heard this they rushed to snatch the comb from
her, but Jack threw them backwards so very roughly that their husbands
sprang at him. With a back switch of his two hands Jack knocked the
husbands down senseless. The King flew into a rage, and said, "How
dare you do that to the two finest and bravest men of this world?"
"Fine and brave, indeed!" said Jack. "One and the other are worthless
creatures, and not even your lawful sons-in-law."
"How dare you say that?" says the King.
"Strip their backs where they lie and see for yourself." And there the
King saw written, "An unlawfully married man."
"What is the meaning of this?" says the King. "They were lawfully
married to my two daughters, and they have the golden tokens of the
marriage."
Jack drew out from his pocket the golden balls and handed them to the
King, and said, "It is I who have the tokens."
The Yellow Rose had gone off to the garden in the middle of all this.
Jack made the King sit down, and told him all his story, and how he
came by the golden balls. He told him how he was Hookedy-Crookedy, and
that it reflected a great deal of honour on his youngest daughter that
she whom the King thought so worthless should refuse to give up
Hookedy-Crookedy for the one she thought a wealthy prince. The King,
you may be sure, was now highly delighted to grant him all he desired.
A couple of drops of Ioca brought the King's two sons-in-law to their
senses again, and at Jack's request, they were ordered to go and live
elsewhere. Jack went off, left his mare in the wood, and came into the
garden as Hookedy-Crookedy. He told the Yellow Rose he had been
gathering bilberries.
"Oh," says she, "I have something grand for you. Let me comb your hair
with this comb."
Hookedy-Crookedy put his head in her lap, and she combed out a bushel
of gold and silver; and when he stood up again, she saw
Hookedy-Crookedy no more, but instead the beautiful prince that had
been trying to win her in her father's drawing-room for the last three
days; and then and there to her Jack told his whole story, and it's
Yellow Rose who was the delighted girl.
With little delay they were married. The wedding lasted a year and a
day, and there were five hundred fiddlers, five hundred fluters and a
thousand fifers at it, and the last day was better than the first.
Shortly after the marriage, Jack and his bride were out walking one
day. A beautiful young woman crossed their path. Jack addressed her,
but she gave him a very curt reply.
"Your manners are not so handsome as your looks," said Jack to her.
"And bad as they are, they are better than your memory,
Hookedy-Crookedy," says she.
"What do you mean?" says Jack.
She led Jack aside, and she told him, "I am the mare who was so good
to you. I was condemned to that shape for a number of years, and now
my enchantment is over. I had a brother who was enchanted into a bear,
and whose enchantment is over now also. I had hopes," she says, "that
some day you would be my husband, but I see," she says, "that you
quickly forgot all about me. No matter now," she says; "I couldn't
wish you a better and handsomer wife than you have got. Go home to
your castle, and be happy and live prosperous. I shall never see you,
and you will never see me again."
_Arndt's Night Underground_
It was on a dreary winter's night, just such a one as it may be
now--only you cannot see it for your closed shutters and
curtains--that two children were coming home from their daily work,
for their parents were poor, and Arndt and Reutha had already to use
their little hands in labour. They were very tired, and as they came
across the moor the wind blew in their faces, and the distant roaring
of the Baltic sea, on whose shore they lived, sounded gloomy and
terrible.
"Dear Arndt, let me sit down and rest for a minute, I can go no
farther," said Reutha, as she sank down on a little mound that seemed
to rise up invitingly, with its shelter of bushes, from the midst of
the desolate moor.
The elder brother tried to encourage his little sister, as all kind
brothers should do; he even tried to carry her a little way; but she
was too heavy for him, and they went back to the mound. Just then the
moon came out, and the little hillock looked such a nice
resting-place, that Reutha longed more than ever to stay. It was not a
cold night, so Arndt was not afraid; and at last he wrapped his sister
up in her woollen cloak, and she sat down.
"I will just run a little farther and try if I can see the light in
father's window," said Arndt. "You will not be afraid, Reutha?"
"Oh, no! I am never afraid."
"And you will not go to sleep?"
"Not I," said Reutha; and all the while she rubbed her eyes to keep
them open, and leaned her head against a branch which seemed to her as
soft and inviting as a pillow.
Arndt went a little way, until he saw the light which his father
always placed so as to guide the children over the moor. Then he felt
quite safe and at home, and went back cheerfully to his sister.
Reutha was not there! Beside the little mound and among the bushes did
poor Arndt search in terror, but he could not find his sister. He
called her name loudly--there was no answer. Not a single trace of her
could be found; and yet he had not been five minutes away.
"Oh! what shall I do?" sobbed the boy; "I dare not go home without
Reutha!" And there for a long time did Arndt sit by the hillock,
wringing his hands and vainly expecting that his sister would hear him
and come back. At last there passed by an old man, who travelled about
the country selling ribbons and cloths.
"How you are grown since I saw you last, my little fellow!" said the
man. "And where is your sister Reutha?"
Arndt burst into tears, and told his friend of all that had happened
that night. The peddler's face grew graver and graver as the boy told
him it was on this very spot that he lost his little sister.
"Arndt," whispered he, "did you ever hear of the Hill-men? It is they
who have carried little Reutha away."
And then the old man told how in his young days he had heard strange
tales of this same moor; for that the little mound was a fairy-hill,
where the underground dwarfs lived, and where they often carried off
young children to be their servants, taking them under the hill, and
only leaving behind their shoes. "For," said the peddler, "the
Hill-people are very particular, and will make all their servants wear
beautiful glass shoes instead of clumsy leather."
So he and Arndt searched about the hill, and there, sure enough, they
found Reutha's tiny shoes hidden under the long grass. At this her
brother's tears burst forth afresh.
"Oh! what shall I do to bring back my poor sister? The Hill-men and
women will kill her!"
"No," said the old man, "they are very good little people, and they
live in a beautiful palace underground. Truly, you will never see
Reutha again, for they will keep her with them a hundred years; and
when she comes back you will be dead and buried, while she is still a
beautiful child."
And then, to comfort the boy, the peddler told him wonderful stories
of the riches and splendour of the Hill-people, how that sometimes
they had been seen dancing at night on the mounds, and how they wore
green caps, which, if any mortal man could get possession of, the
dwarfs were obliged to serve him and obey him in everything. All this
Arndt drank in with eager ears; and when the peddler went away he sat
a long time thinking.
"I will do it," at last he said aloud. "I will try to get my dear
Reutha safe back again."
And the boy stole noiselessly to the mound which the Hill-men were
supposed to inhabit. He hid himself among the surrounding bushes, and
there he lay in the silence and darkness, his young heart beating
wildly, and only stilled by one thought that lay ever there, that of
the lost Reutha. At last a sudden brightness flashed upon the boy's
eyes; it could not be the moon, for she had long set. No; but it was a
sight more glorious than Arndt had ever dreamed of.
The grassy hill opened, and through this aperture the boy saw a palace
underground, glittering with gold and gems. The Hill-men danced about
within it, dressed like tiny men and women. Arndt thought how
beautiful they were, though they seemed no bigger than his own baby
sister of six months old. One by one they rose out of the opening, and
gambolled on the snow-covered mound; but wherever they trod flowers
sprang up, and the air grew light and warm as summer. After a while
they ceased dancing and began ball-playing, tossing their little green
caps about in great glee. And lo and behold! one of these wonderful
caps, being tossed farther than usual, lighted on the very forehead of
the peeping boy!
In a moment he snatched it and held it fast, with a cry of triumph.
The light faded--the scene vanished--only Arndt heard a small weak
voice whispering, humbly and beseechingly in his ear.
"Please, noble gentleman, give me my cap again."
"No, no, good Hill-man," answered the courageous boy; "you have got
my little sister, and I have got your cap, which I shall keep."
"I will give you a better cap for it--all gold and jewels--oh, so
beautiful!" said the Hill-man, persuasively.
"I will not have it. What good would it do me? No, no, I am your
master, good dwarf, as you very well know, and I command you to take
me down in the hill with you, for I want to see Reutha."
There shone a dim light on the grass, like a glowworm, and then Arndt
saw the elfin mound open again; but this time the palace looked like a
dim, gloomy staircase. On the top stair stood the little Hill-man,
holding the glowworm lamp, and making many low bows to his new master.
Arndt glanced rather fearfully down the staircase; but then he thought
of Reutha, and his love for her made him grow bold. He took upon
himself a lordly air, and bade his little servant lead the way.
The Hill-man took him through beautiful galleries, and halls, and
gardens, until the boy's senses were intoxicated with these lovely
things. Every now and then he stopped, and asked for Reutha: but then
there was always some new chamber to be seen, or some dainty banquet
to be tasted; until, by degrees, Arndt's memory of his little sister
grew dimmer, and he revelled in the delights of the fairy palace hour
after hour. When night came--if so it could be called in that lovely
place, where night was only day shadowed over and made more
delicious--the boy felt himself lulled by sweet music to a soft
dreaminess, which was all the sleep that was needed in that fairy
paradise.
Thus, day after day passed in all gay delights, the elfin people were
the merriest in the world, and they did all their little master
desired. And Arndt knew not that while they surrounded him with
delights it was only to make him forget his errand. But one day, when
the boy lay on a green dell in the lovely fairy-garden, he heard a
low, wailing song, and saw a troop of little mortal children at work
in the distance. Some were digging ore, and others making jewellery,
while a few stood in the stream that ran by, beating linen, as it
seemed. And among these poor little maidens, who worked so hard and
sang so mournfully, was his own sister Reutha.
"No one cares for me," she murmured; and her song had in it a
plaintive sweetness, very different from the way in which the little
Danish maiden spoke on earth. "Reutha is alone--her hands are sore
with toil--her feet bleed--but no one pities her. Arndt sleeps in
gorgeous clothes, while Reutha toils in rags. Arndt is the
master--Reutha is the slave! Poor Reutha is quite alone!"
Even amidst the spells of fairyland that voice went to the brother's
heart. He called the Hill-people, and bade them bring Reutha to him.
Then he kissed her, and wept over her, and dressed her in his own
beautiful robes, while the Hill-men dared not interfere. Arndt took
his sister by the hand, and said--
"Now, let us go; we have stayed long enough. Good Hill-man, you shall
have your cap again when you have brought Reutha and me to our own
father's door."
But the Hill-man shook his tiny head, and made his most obsequious
bow. "Noble master, anything but this! This little maid we found
asleep on our hill, and she is ours for a hundred years."
Here Arndt got into a passion; for, convinced of the power the little
green cap gave him over the dwarfs, he had long lost all fear of them.
He stamped with his foot until the little man leaped up a yard high,
and begged his master to be more patient.
"How dare you keep my sister? you ugly little creatures!" cried the
boy, his former pleasant companion becoming at once hateful to him.
But the Hill-people only gave him gentle answers; until at last he
grew ashamed of being so angry with such tiny creatures. They led him
to a palace, more beautiful than any he had yet seen, and showed him
pearls and diamonds heaped up in basketfuls.
"You shall take all these away with you, noble sir!" said his little
servant. "They will make you a rich man all the days of your life, and
you will live in a palace as fine as ours. Is not that far better than
having a poor helpless sister to work for?"
But Arndt caught a glimpse of Reutha, as she sat outside; weeping--she
dared not enter with him--and he kicked the baskets over, and
scattered the jewels like so many pebbles.
"Keep all your treasures, and give me my sister!" cried he.
Then the Hill-man tried him with something else. Arndt was a very
handsome boy and everybody had told him so, until he was rather vain.
Many a time, when he worked in the field, he used to look at himself
in a clear, still pool, and think how golden his hair was, and how
lithe and graceful his figure. Now the Hill-man knew all this; and so
he led the boy to a crystal mirror and showed him his own beautiful
form, set off with every advantage of rich dress. And then, by fairy
spells, Arndt saw beside it the image of the little peasant as he was
when he entered the hill.
"Think how different!" whispered the dwarf. He breathed on the mirror,
and the boy saw himself as he would be when he grew up--a
hard-working, labouring man; and opposite, the semblance of a young,
graceful nobleman, whose face was the same which the stream had often
told him was his own.
"We can make thee always thus handsome. Choose which thou wilt be,"
murmured the tempting voice.
The boy hesitated; but the same moment came that melancholy voice--"My
brother is rich, and I am poor; he is clad in silk, and I in rags.
Alas, for me!"
"It shall not be!" cried the noble boy. "I will go out of this place
as poor as I came; but I will take Reutha with me. I will work all the
days of my life; but Reutha shall not stay here. Hill-people! I want
none of your treasures; but I command you to give me my sister, and
let us go!"
Arndt folded his arms around Reutha, and walked with her through all
the gorgeous rooms, the Hill-men and women following behind, and
luring him with their sweetest songs and most bewitching smiles. But
Reutha's voice and Reutha's smile had greatest power of all over her
brother's heart.
They climbed the gloomy staircase, and stood at the opening in the
hillock. Then the little Hill-man appealed once more to his master--
"Noble gentleman! remember, a life of labour with Reutha or one of
continual pleasure alone! Think again!"
"No, not for a moment," said Arndt, as he felt the breezes of earth
playing on his cheek. How sweet they were, even after the fragrant
airs of elfin-land!
"At least, kind master, give me my cap!" piteously implored the
Hill-man.
"Take it; and good-bye for evermore!" cried Arndt, as he clasped his
sister in his arms and leaped out. The chasm closed, and the two
children found themselves lying in a snow-drift, with the gray dawn of
a winter's morning just breaking over them.
"Where have you been all night, my children?" cried the anxious
mother, as they knocked at the door.
Had it, indeed, been only a single night, the months that seemed to
have passed while they were under the hill? They could not tell, for
they were now like all other children, and their wisdom learned in
fairyland had passed away. It seemed only a dream, save that the
brother and sister loved each other better than ever, and so they
continued to do as long as they lived.
_The Unicorn_
Fritz, Franz, and Hans were charcoal-burners. They lived with their
mother in the depths of a forest, where they very seldom saw the face
of another human being. Hans, the youngest, did not remember ever
having lived anywhere else, but Fritz and Franz could just call to
mind sunny meadows, in which they played as little children, plucking
the flowers and chasing the butterflies. Indeed, Fritz was able to
compare the present state of miserable poverty in which they lived
with the ease and comfort they had enjoyed in years gone by.
Once upon a time they were well off. They had enough to eat every day;
they lived in a comfortable house, surrounded by a nice garden, and
with plenty of kind neighbours around them. Then came a change. Their
father lost his money and was forced to leave this pleasant home, and
to earn bread for his family by becoming a charcoal-burner. Everything
now became different. Their house was a poor hut, composed of a few
logs of wood knocked roughly together. Dry black bread with,
occasionally, a few potatoes and lentils, and now and then, as a great
treat, a little porridge, formed their food. And to secure even this
they had to work hard from morning till night at their grimy trade.
But their father was brave and patient, and, while he was alive, the
wolf was kept some distance from the door. Besides, he could always
put some heart into the boys when they began to flag, by a joke or a
pleasant story. But he had died a year ago, owing to an accident he
met with while chopping wood for the furnace, and since his death
matters had been going from bad to worse with the family.
Fritz and Franz were, unfortunately, selfish, ill-conditioned lads,
who made the worst instead of the best of their troubles, and who
even grudged their mother and brother their share of the food. Hans,
on the other hand, was a capital fellow. He always had a cheerful
smile or word, and did all in his power to help his mother to keep in
good spirits. One day, at dinner time, they were startled by a knock
at the door. A knock at the door does not seem to us, perhaps, to be a
very startling thing, but they, as I said, so seldom saw a strange
face near their home that this knock at the door quite took away their
breath. When it came, Fritz and Franz were sitting over the fire
munching their last piece of black bread, and grumbling to each other
as was their custom, while Hans, seated on the bed beside his mother,
was telling her about what he saw and what he fancied when he was in
the forest. Fritz was the first to recover himself, and he growled
out, in his usual surly tone, "Come in." The door opened, and a
gentleman entered. From his green dress, the gun that he carried in
his hand, and the game-bag slung by his side, they saw that he was a
huntsman, who had been amusing himself with shooting the game with
which the forest abounded.
"Good morning, good friends," he said, in a cheerful tone. "Could you
provide me with a cup of water and a mouthful of something to eat? I
have forgotten to bring anything with me, and am ravenously hungry,
and far from home."
Fritz and Franz first threw a scowling glance from under their
eyebrows at the stranger by way of reply, then gave a grunt, and
continued munching at their hunks of bread. Hans, however, was more
polite. The only seats in the hut were occupied by Fritz and Franz,
and as they showed no disposition to move, Hans dragged a log of wood
from a corner and placed it before the visitor, and invited him to sit
down. Then he produced a cup, scrupulously clean indeed, but sadly
cracked and chipped, and, running outside, he filled it from a spring
of delicious, cool water, which rose near the hut. As he had been busy
talking to his mother, he had had no time to eat his share of the
black bread, and so he handed his coarse crust to the stranger, saying
he was sorry that there was nothing better to offer him.