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FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
Edited by
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library
Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., for The Parents' Institute, Inc.
Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine"
1905
[Illustration: "A thousand fantasies begin to throng"]
INTRODUCTION TO
"FAIRIES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW"
The fairy tale is a poetic recording of the facts of life, an
interpretation by the imagination of its hard conditions, an effort to
reconcile the spirit which loves freedom and goodness and beauty with
its harsh, bare and disappointing conditions. It is, in its earliest
form, a spontaneous and instinctive endeavor to shape the facts of the
world to meet the needs of the imagination, the cravings of the heart.
It involves a free, poetic dealing with realities in accordance with the
law of mental growth; it is the naïve activity of the young imagination
of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the
fact.
The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and
its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful play of the
imagination, opening doors through hard conditions to the spirit, which
craves power, freedom, happiness; righting wrongs and redressing
injuries; defeating base designs; rewarding patience and virtue;
crowning true love with happiness; placing the powers of darkness under
control of man and making their ministers his servants. In the fairy
story, men are not set entirely free from their limitations, but, by the
aid of fairies, genii, giants and demons, they are put in command of
unusual powers and make themselves masters of the forces of nature.
The oldest fairy stories constitute a fascinating introduction to the
book of modern science, curiously predicting its discoveries, its
uncovering of the resources of the earth and air, its growing control of
the tremendous forces which work in earth and air. And it is significant
that the recent progress of science is steadily toward what our
ancestors would have considered fairy land; for in all the imaginings of
the childhood of the race there was nothing more marvellous or more
audaciously improbable than the transmission of the accents and
modulations of familiar voices through long distances, and the power of
communication across leagues of sea without mechanical connections of
any kind.
The faculty which created the fairy tale is the same faculty which,
supplemented by a broader observation and based on more accurate
knowledge, has broadened the range and activities of modern man, made
the world accessible to him, enabled him to live in one place but to
speak and act in places thousands of miles distant, given him command of
colossal forces, and is fast making him rich on a scale which would have
seemed incredible to men of a half-century ago. There is nothing in any
fairy tale more marvellous and inherently improbable than many of the
achievements of scientific observation and invention, and we are only at
the beginning of the wonders that lie within the reach of the human
spirit!
No one can understand the modern world without the aid of the
imagination, and as the frontiers of knowledge are pushed still further
away from the obvious and familiar, there will be an increasing tax on
the imagination. The world of dead matter which our fathers thought they
understood has become a world of subtle forces moving with inconceivable
velocity; nothing is inert, all things are transformed into other and
more elusive shapes precisely as the makers of the fairy tales foresaw
and predicted; the world lives in every atom just as their world lived;
forces lie just outside the range of physical sight, but entirely within
the range of spiritual vision, precisely as the tellers of these old
stories divined; mystery and wonder enfold all things, and not only
evoke the full play of the mind, but flood it with intimations and
suggestions of the presence of more elusive and subtle forces, of finer
and more obedient powers, as the world of fairies, magi and demons
enfolded the ancient earth of daily toil and danger.
In a word, the fairy stories have come true; they are historical in the
sense that they faithfully report a stage of spiritual growth and
predict a higher order of realities through a deeper knowledge of
actualities. They were poetic renderings of facts which science is fast
verifying, chiefly by the use of the same faculty which enriched early
literature with the myth and the fairy tale. The scientist has turned
poet in these later days, and the imagination which once expressed
itself in a free handling of facts so as to make them answer the needs
and demands of the human spirit, now expresses itself in that breadth of
vision which reconstructs an extinct animal from a bone and analyzes the
light of a sun flaming on the outermost boundaries of space.
This collection of tales, gathered from the rich literature of the
childhood of the world, or from the books of the few modern men who have
found the key of that wonderful world, is put forth not only without
apology, but with the hope that it may widen the demand for these
charming reports of a world in which the truths of our working world are
loyally upheld, while its hard facts are quietly but authoritatively
dismissed from attention. The widest interpretation has been given to
the fairy tale, so as to include many of those classic romances of
childhood in which no fairy appears, but which are invested with the air
and are permeated with the glorious freedom of fairy land.
No sane man or woman undervalues the immense gains of the modern world
in the knowledge of facts and the application of ideas to things in
order to secure comfort, health, access to the treasure in the earth and
on its surface, the means of education and greater freedom from the
tyranny of toil by the accumulation of the fruits of toil; but no sane
man or woman believes that a mechanical age is other than a transitional
age, that the possession of things is the final achievement of society,
and that in multiplication of conveniences civilization will reach its
point of culmination.
We are so engrossed in getting rich that we forget that by and by, when
we have become rich, we shall have to learn how to live; for work can
never be an end in itself; it is a "means of grace" when it is not
drudgery; and it must, in the long run, be a preparation for play. For
play is not organized idleness, frivolity set in a fanciful order; it is
the normal, spontaneous exercise of physical activity, the wholesome
gayety of the mind, the natural expression of the spirit, without
self-consciousness, constraint, or the tyranny of hours and tasks. It is
the highest form of energy, because it is free and creative; a joy in
itself, and therefore a joy in the world. This is the explanation of the
sense of freedom and elation which come from a great work of art; it is
the instinctive perception of the fact that while immense toil lies
behind the artist's skill, the soul of the creation came from beyond the
world of work and the making of it was a bit of play. The man of
creative spirit is often a tireless worker, but in his happiest hours he
is at play; for all work, when it rises into freedom and power, is play.
"We work," wrote a Greek thinker of the most creative people who have
yet appeared, "in order that we may have leisure." The note of that life
was freedom; its activity was not "evoked by external needs, but was
free, spontaneous and delightful; an ordered energy which stimulates all
the vital and mental powers."
Robert Louis Stevenson, who knew well how to touch work with the spirit
and charm of play, reports of certain evenings spent at a clubhouse near
Brussels, that the men who gathered there "were employed over the
frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the day; but in the
evening they found some hours for the serious concerns of life." They
gave their days to commerce, but their evenings were devoted to more
important interests!
These words are written for those older people who have made the mistake
of straying away from childhood; children do not read introductions,
because they know that the valuable part of the book is to be found in
the later pages. They read the stories; their elders read the
introduction as well. They both need the stuff of imagination, of which
myths, legends, and fairy tales are made. So much may be said of these
old stories that it is a serious question where to begin, and a still
more difficult question where to end. For these tales are the first
outpourings of that spring of imagination whence flow the most
illuminating, inspiring, refreshing and captivating thoughts and ideas
about life. No philosophy is deeper than that which underlies these
stories; no psychology is more important than that which finds its
choicest illustration in them; no chapter in the history of thought is
more suggestive and engrossing than that which records their growth and
divines their meaning. Fairy tales and myths are so much akin that they
are easily transformed and exchange costumes without changing character;
while the legend, which belongs to a later period, often reflects the
large meaning of the myth and the free fancy of the fairy tale.
As a class, children not only possess the faculty of imagination, but
are very largely occupied with it during the most sensitive and
formative years, and those who lack it are brought under its spell by
their fellows. They do not accurately distinguish between the actual and
the imaginary, and they live at ease in a world out of which paths run
in every direction into wonderland. They begin their education when they
begin to play; for play not only affords an outlet for their energy, and
so supplies one great means of growth and training, but places them in
social relations with their mates and in conscious contact with the
world about them. The old games that have been played by generations of
children not only precede the training of the school and supplement it,
but accomplish some results in the nature of the child which are beyond
the reach of the school. When a crowd of boys are rushing across country
in "hounds and deer," they are giving lungs, heart and muscles the best
possible exercise; they are sharing certain rules of honor with one
another, expressed in that significant phrase, "fair play"; and they are
giving rein to their imaginations in the very name of their occupation.
Body, spirit and imagination have their part in every good game; for the
interest of a game lies in its appeal to the imagination, as in "hounds
and deer," or in its stimulus to activity, as in "tag" and
"hide-and-seek."
There are few chapters in the biography of the childhood of men of
genius more significant than those which describe imaginary worlds which
were, for a time, as real as the actual world in which the boy lived.
Goethe entertained and mystified his playmates with accounts of a
certain garden in which he wandered at will, but which they could not
find; and De Quincey created a kingdom, with all its complex relations
and varied activities, which he ruled with beneficence and affection
until, in an unlucky hour, he revealed his secret to his brother, who
straightway usurped his authority, and governed his subjects with such
tyranny and cruelty that De Quincey was compelled to save his people by
destroying them.
These elaborate and highly organized efforts of the young imagination,
of which boys and girls of unusual inventiveness are capable, are
imitated on a smaller scale by all normal children. They endow inanimate
things with life, and play and suffer with them as with their real
playmates. The little girl not only talks with her dolls, but weeps with
and for them when disaster overtakes them. The boy faces foes of his own
making in the woods, or at lonely places in the road, who are quite as
real to him as the people with whom he lives. By common agreement a
locality often becomes a historic spot to a whole group of boys; enemies
are met and overcome there; grave perils are bravely faced; and the
magic sometimes lingers long after the dream has been dissolved in the
dawning light of definite knowledge. Childhood is one long day of
discovery; first, to the unfolding spirit, there is revealed a
wonderland partly actual and partly created by the action of the mind;
then follows the slow awakening, when the growing boy or girl learns to
distinguish between fact and fancy, and to separate the real from the
imaginary.
This process of learning to "see things as they are" is often regarded
as the substance of education, and to be able to distinguish sharply and
accurately between reality and vision, actual and imaginary image is
accepted as the test of thorough training of the intelligence. What
really takes place is the readjustment of the work of the faculties so
as to secure harmonious action; and in the happy and sound development
of the nature the imagination does not give place to observation, but
deals with principles, forces and laws instead of with things. The loss
of vision is never compensated for by the gain of sight; to see a thing
one must use his mind quite as much as his eye. It too often happens, as
the result of our educational methods, that in training the observer we
blight the poet; and the poet is, after all, the most important person
in society. He keeps the soul of his fellows alive. Without him the
modern world would become one vast, dreary, soul-destroying Coketown,
and man would sink to the level of Gradgrind. The practical man develops
the resources of the country, the man of vision discerns, formulates and
directs its spiritual policy and growth; the mechanic builds the house,
but the architect creates it; the artisan makes the tools, but the
artist uses them; the observer sees and records the fact, but the
scientist discovers the law; the man of affairs manages the practical
concerns of the world from day to day, but the poet makes it spiritual,
significant, interesting, worth living in.
The modern child passes through the same stages as did the children of
four thousand years ago. He, too, is a poet. He believes that the world
about him throbs with life and is peopled with all manner of strange,
beautiful, powerful folk, who live just outside the range of his sight;
he, too, personifies light and heat and storm and wind and cold as his
remote ancestors did. He, too, lives in and through his imagination; and
if, in later life, he grows in power and becomes a creative man, his
achievements are the fruits of the free and vigorous life of his
imagination. The higher kinds of power, the higher opportunities of
mind, the richer resources, the springs of the deeper happiness, are
open to him in the exact degree in which he is able to use his
imagination with individual freedom and intelligence. Formal education
makes small provision for this great need of his nature; it trains his
eye, his hand, his faculty of observation, his ability to reason, his
capacity for resolute action; but it takes little account of that higher
faculty which, cooperating with the other faculties, makes him an
architect instead of a builder, an artist instead of an artisan, a poet
instead of a drudge.
The fairy tale belongs to the child and ought always to be within his
reach, not only because it is his special literary form and his nature
craves it, but because it is one of the most vital of the textbooks
offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks
the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for
without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really
comprehensible.
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE,
March, 1905.
FAIRY TALES
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
ONE EYE, TWO EYES, THREE EYES
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
THE MAGIC MIRROR
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
THE ENCHANTED STAG
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
HANSEL AND GRETHEL
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
THE STORY OF ALADDIN; OR, THE WONDERFUL LAMP
("Arabian Nights' Entertainments")
THE HISTORY OF ALI BABA, AND OF THE FORTY
ROBBERS KILLED BY ONE SLAVE
("Arabian Nights' Entertainments")
THE SECOND VOYAGE OF SINDBAD THE SAILOR
("Arabian Nights' Entertainments")
THE WHITE CAT
(From the tale by the Comtesse d'Aulnoy)
THE GOLDEN GOOSE
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
THE TWELVE BROTHERS
(Grimm's Fairy Tales)
THE FAIR ONE WITH THE GOLDEN LOCKS
(From the tale by the Comtesse d'Aulnoy)
TOM THUMB
(First written in prose in 1621 by Richard Johnson)
BLUE BEARD
(From the French tale by Charles Perrault)
CINDERELLA; OR, THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER
(From the French tale by Charles Perrault)
PUSS IN BOOTS
(From the French tale by Charles Perrault)
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD
(From the French tale by Charles Perrault)
JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK
(Said to be an allegory of the Teutonic
Al-fader, The tale written in French
by Charles Perrault)
JACK THE GIANT KILLER
(From the old British legend told by Geoffrey
of Monmouth, of Corineus the Trojan)
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
(From the French tale by Charles Perrault)
THE THREE BEARS
(Robert Southey)
THE PRINCESS ON THE PEA
(From the tale by Hans Christian Andersen)
THE UGLY DUCKLING
(From the tale by Hans Christian Andersen)
THE LIGHT PRINCESS
(George MacDonald)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
(From the French tale by Madame Gabrielle
de Villeneuve)
FAIRY TALES EVERY CHILD
SHOULD KNOW
CHAPTER I
ONE EYE, TWO EYES, THREE EYES
There was once a woman who had three daughters, of whom the eldest was
named "One Eye," because she had only one eye in the middle of her
forehead. The second had two eyes, like other people, and she was called
"Two Eyes." The youngest had three eyes, two like her second sister, and
one in the middle of her forehead, like the eldest, and she bore the
name of "Three Eyes."
Now because little Two Eyes looked just like other people, her mother
and sisters could not endure her. They said to her, "You are not better
than common folks, with your two eyes; you don't belong to us."
So they pushed her about, and threw all their old clothes to her for her
to wear, and gave her only the pieces that were left to eat, and did
everything that they could to make her miserable. It so happened that
little Two Eyes was sent into the fields to take care of the goats, and
she was often very hungry, although her sisters had as much as they
liked to eat. So one day she seated herself on a mound in the field, and
began to weep and cry so bitterly that two little rivulets flowed from
her eyes. Once, in the midst of her sorrow she looked up, and saw a
woman standing near her who said, "What are you weeping for, little Two
Eyes?"
"I cannot help weeping," she replied; "for because I have two eyes, like
other people, my mother and sisters cannot bear me; they push me about
from one corner to another and make we wear their old clothes, and give
me nothing to eat but what is left, so that I am always hungry. To-day
they gave me so little that I am nearly starved."
"Dry up your tears, little Two Eyes," said the wise woman; "I will tell
you something to do which will prevent you from ever being hungry again.
You have only to say to your own goat:
"'Little goat, if you're able,
Pray deck out my table,'
"and immediately there will be a pretty little table before you full of
all sorts of good things for you to eat, as much as you like. And when
you have had enough, and you do not want the table any more, you need
only say:
"'Little goat, when you're able,
Remove my nice table,'
"and it will vanish from your eyes."
Then the wise woman went away. "Now," thought little Two Eyes, "I will
try if what she says is true, for I am very hungry," so she said:
"Little goat, if you're able,
Pray deck out my table."
The words were scarcely spoken, when a beautiful little table stood
really before her; it had a white cloth and plates, and knives and
forks, and silver spoons, and such a delicious dinner, smoking hot as if
it had just come from the kitchen. Then little Two Eyes sat down and
said the shortest grace she knew--"Pray God be our guest for all time.
Amen"--before she allowed herself to taste anything. But oh, how she did
enjoy her dinner! and when she had finished, she said, as the wise woman
had taught her:
"Little goat, when you're able,
Remove my nice table."
In a moment, the table and everything upon it had disappeared. "That is
a pleasant way to keep house," said little Two Eyes, and felt quite
contented and happy. In the evening, when she went home with the goat,
she found an earthenware dish with some scraps which her sisters had
left for her, but she did not touch them. The next morning she went away
with the goat, leaving them behind where they had been placed for her.
The first and second times that she did so, the sisters did not notice
it; but when they found it happened every day, they said one to the
other, "There is something strange about little Two Eyes, she leaves her
supper every day, and all that has been put for her has been wasted; she
must get food somewhere else."
So they determined to find out the truth, and they arranged that when
Two Eyes took her goat to the field, One Eye should go with her to take
particular notice of what she did, and discover if anything was brought
for her to eat and drink.
So when Two Eyes started with her goat, One Eye said to her, "I am going
with you to-day to see if the goat gets her food properly while you are
watching the rest."
But Two Eyes knew what she had in her mind. So she drove the goat into
the long grass, and said, "Come, One Eye, let us sit down here and rest,
and I will sing to you."
One Eye seated herself, and, not being accustomed to walk so far, or to
be out in the heat of the sun, she began to feel tired, and as little
Two Eyes kept on singing, she closed her one eye and fell fast asleep.
When Two Eyes saw this, she knew that One Eye could not betray her, so
she said:
"Little goat, if you are able,
Come and deck my pretty table."
She seated herself when it appeared, and ate and drank very quickly, and
when she had finished she said:
"Little goat, when you are able,
Come and clear away my table."
It vanished in the twinkling of an eye; and then Two Eyes woke up One
Eye, and said, "Little One Eye, you are a clever one to watch goats;
for, while you are asleep, they might be running all over the world.
Come, let us go home!"
So they went to the house, and little Two Eyes again left the scraps on
the dish untouched, and One Eye could not tell her mother whether little
Two Eyes had eaten anything in the field; for she said to excuse
herself, "I was asleep."
The next day the mother said to Three Eyes, "You must go to the field
this time, and find out whether there is anyone who brings food to
little Two Eyes; for she must eat and drink secretly."
So when little Two Eyes started with her goat, Three Eyes followed, and
said, "I am going with you to-day, to see if the goats are properly fed
and watched."
But Two Eyes knew her thoughts; so she led the goat through the long
grass to tire Three Eyes, and at last she said, "Let us sit down here
and rest, and I will sing to you, Three Eyes."
She was glad to sit down, for the walk and the heat of the sun had
really tired her; and, as her sister continued her song, she was obliged
to close two of her eyes, and they slept, but not the third. In fact,
Three Eyes was wide awake with one eye, and heard and saw all that Two
Eyes did; for poor little Two Eyes, thinking she was asleep, said her
speech to the goat, and the table came with all the good things on it,
and was carried away when Two Eyes had eaten enough; and the cunning
Three Eyes saw it all with her one eye. But she pretended to be asleep
when her sister came to wake her and told her she was going home.
That evening, when little Two Eyes again left the supper they placed
aside for her, Three Eyes said to her mother, "I know where the proud
thing gets her good eating and drinking;" and then she described all she
had seen in the field. "I saw it all with one eye," she said; "for she
had made my other two eyes close with her fine singing, but luckily the
one in my forehead remained open."
Then the envious mother cried out to poor little Two Eyes, "You wish to
have better food than we, do you? You shall lose your wish!" She took up
a butcher's knife, went out, and stuck the good little goat in the
heart, and it fell dead.
When little Two Eyes saw this, she went out into the field, seated
herself on a mound, and wept most bitter tears.
Presently the wise woman stood again before her, and said, "Little Two
Eyes, why do you weep?"
"Ah!" she replied, "I must weep. The goat, who every day spread my table
so beautifully, has been killed by my mother, and I shall have again to
suffer from hunger and sorrow."
"Little Two Eyes," said the wise woman, "I will give you some good
advice. Go home, and ask your sister to give you the inside of the
slaughtered goat, and then go and bury it in the ground in front of the
house-door."
On saying this the wise woman vanished.
Little Two Eyes went home quickly, and said to her sister, "Dear sister,
give me some part of my poor goat. I don't want anything valuable; only
give me the inside."
Her sister laughed, and said, "Of course you can have that, if you don't
want anything else."
So little Two Eyes took the inside; and in the evening, when all was
quiet, buried it in the ground outside the house-door, as the wise woman
had told her to do.
The next morning, when they all rose and looked out of the window, there
stood a most wonderful tree, with leaves of silver and apples of gold
hanging between them. Nothing in the wide world could be more beautiful
or more costly. They none of them knew how the tree could come there in
one night, excepting little Two Eyes. She supposed it had grown up from
the inside of the goat; for it stood over where she had buried it in the
earth.
Then said the mother to little One Eye, "Climb up, my child, and break
off some of the fruit from the tree."
One Eye climbed up, but when she tried to catch a branch and pluck one
of the apples, it escaped from her hand, and so it happened every time
she made the attempt, and, do what she would, she could not reach one.
"Three Eyes," said the mother, "climb up, and try what you can do;
perhaps you will be able to see better with your three eyes than One Eye
can."
One Eye slid down from the tree, and Three Eyes climbed up. But Three
Eyes was not more skilful; with all her efforts she could not draw the
branches, nor the fruit, near enough to pluck even a leaf, for they
sprang back as she put out her hand.
At last the mother was impatient, and climbed up herself, but with no
more success, for, as she appeared to grasp a branch, or fruit, her hand
closed upon thin air.
"May I try?" said little Two Eyes; "perhaps I may succeed."
"You, indeed!" cried her sisters; "you, with your two eyes, what can you
do?"
But Two Eyes climbed up, and the golden apples did not fly back from her
when she touched them, but almost laid themselves on her hand, and she
plucked them one after another, till she carried down her own little
apron full.
The mother took them from her, and gave them to her sisters, as she said
little Two Eyes did not handle them properly; but this was only from
jealousy, because little Two Eyes was the only one who could reach the
fruit, and she went into the house feeling more spiteful to her than
ever.
It happened that while all three sisters were standing under the tree
together a young knight rode by. "Run away, quick, and hide yourself,
little Two Eyes; hide yourself somewhere, for we shall be quite ashamed
for you to be seen." Then they pushed the poor girl, in great haste,
under an empty cask, which stood near the tree, and several of the
golden apples that she had plucked along with her.
As the knight came nearer they saw he was a handsome man; and presently
he halted, and looked with wonder and pleasure at the beautiful tree
with its silver leaves and golden fruit.
At last he spoke to the sisters, and asked: "To whom does this beautiful
tree belong? If a man possessed only one branch he might obtain all he
wished for in the world."
"This tree belongs to us," said the two sisters, "and we will break off
a branch for you if you like." They gave themselves a great deal of
trouble in trying to do as they offered; but all to no purpose, for the
branches and the fruit evaded their efforts, and sprung back at every
touch.
"This is wonderful," exclaimed the knight, "that the tree should belong
to you, and yet you are not able to gather even a branch."
They persisted, however, in declaring that the tree was their own
property. At this moment little Two Eyes, who was angry because her
sisters had not told the truth, caused two of the golden apples to slip
out from under the cask, and they rolled on till they reached the feet
of the knight's horse. When he saw them, he asked in astonishment where
they came from.
The two ugly maidens replied that they had another sister, but they
dared not let him see her, for she had only two eyes, like common
people, and was named little Two Eyes.
But the knight felt very anxious to see her, and called out, "Little Two
Eyes, come here." Then came Two Eyes, quite comforted, from the empty
cask, and the knight was astonished to find her so beautiful.
Then he said, "Little Two Eyes, can you break off a branch of the tree
for me?"
"Oh yes," she replied, "I can, very easily, for the tree belongs to me."
And she climbed up, and, without any trouble, broke off a branch with
its silver leaves and golden fruit and gave it to the knight.
He looked down at her as she stood by his horse, and said: "Little Two
Eyes, what shall I give you for this?"
"Ah!" she answered, "I suffer from hunger and thirst, and sorrow, and
trouble, from early morning till late at night; if you would only take
me with you, and release me, I should be so happy."
Then the knight lifted the little maiden on his horse, and rode home
with her to his father's castle. There she was given beautiful clothes
to wear, and as much to eat and drink as she wished, and as she grew up
the young knight loved her so dearly that they were married with great
rejoicings.
Now, when the two sisters saw little Two Eyes carried away by the
handsome young knight, they were overjoyed at their good fortune. "The
wonderful tree belongs to us now," they said; "even if we cannot break
off a branch, yet everybody who passes will stop to admire it, and make
acquaintance with us, and, who knows? we may get husbands after all."
But when they rose the next morning, lo! the tree had vanished, and with
it all their hopes. And on this very morning, when little Two Eyes
looked out of her chamber window of the castle, she saw, to her great
joy, that the tree had followed her.
Little Two Eyes lived for a long time in great happiness; but she heard
nothing of her sisters, till one day two poor women came to the castle,
to beg for alms. Little Two Eyes saw them, and, looking earnestly in
their faces, she recognised her two sisters, who had become so poor that
they were obliged to beg their bread from door to door.
But the good sister received them most kindly, and promised to take care
of them and give them all they wanted. And then they did indeed repent
and feel sorry for having treated her so badly in their youthful days.