we saw a sick child lying on a pallet of straw on a dirt floor, and
around him his mother and sisters and brothers, all weeping absurdly; I
rallied the mother on it in the pleasantest way possible, but she did
not take it in very good part. In another we found an old man, blind
and alone, without food and without wife or child, talking to himself
in a gibberish which was truly laughable; I tried, for sport, to talk
to him in the same sort of gibberish, but though it was excellent
sport, I saw that for some reason or other it did not amuse my wife,
so I led her away. In another place we saw a man who was evidently
overcome by wine, and who appeared to be in terror of certain vipers
and spiders which, as I ascertained, existed nowhere but in his own
imagination. This man was the prize of the whole collection; I amused
myself with him for a long time; and I was altogether so greatly
diverted that the Princess had some difficulty in dragging me away.
On the way home, I commented on what we had seen with a drollery which
I had thought sufficient to draw a smile from a stone; but the Princess
was unmoved; she sat in stony silence, and when we reached the castle
she went at once to her room, and I saw her no more that day.
Not long afterward, a beautiful boy was born to us; and in course of
time he grew to be the finest child of his age in the Island Kingdom;
there were many who said so, even to his mother.
He was two years of age, when on a certain day in summer his mother
sent him into the gardens with a nurse, while she remained with me in
conversation in her room. Some half hour later, I was telling her an
amusing story, which I had recently heard, when the door burst open,
and a man-servant rushed into the room carrying our boy, dripping
wet, in his arms, and laid him in his mother’s lap. The child was
dead. The nurse had left him beside the same fountain pool from which
years before I had rescued his mother’s ball, and in her absence he
had fallen into the water. The Princess turned pale and screamed; she
clasped the child to her breast and rocked him back and forth; she
spoke to him as if he were still alive, and even tried to call him back
to life.
I smiled at her delusion. I put my hand on her shoulder and shook her
gently. She looked up at me with streaming eyes, and saw the bright and
smiling look on my own face.
“Come, my dear,” I said kindly, laughing quietly as I spoke, “there
is no use talking to him like that, you know. You must be reasonable.
The dear little fellow is dead, that is all. Surely there is nothing in
that to disturb you? Look at me. I’m not disturbed. I can’t understand
what you find in this to bother you. Come, let the good man take him
away to another room, and I will go on with the story I was telling
when we were interrupted.”
She rose slowly, never taking her eyes from me, and hugging the child
closer backed away from me, and suddenly turned and fled from the room.
I smiled to myself at the whimsical nature of women.
It was a long time before she would speak to me; and although I did
not permit this to ruffle me, I waited with some impatience for her
explanation. I was of course reluctant to blame her too much without
giving her an opportunity of explaining her conduct. I was accordingly
pleased when she took me aside one day and asked to speak with me in
private. She sat down before me in her room and looked me steadily in
the eyes.
_The Princess Finds Her Husband Bewitched_
“Alb,” said she, “this can go on no longer. You are bewitched.”
I smiled indulgently. “I am not aware of it,” I said.
“Tell me,” she said, earnestly, “what are those three black hairs in
your head?”
“Oh, those! They are nothing. I found them there after the old beggar
had pretended to grant me a wish, long ago.”
“What old beggar? Now I am learning something! Tell me about the old
beggar and the wish!”
“What does it matter? He was a ragged old fellow, with shaggy eyebrows,
carrying a yardstick and tailor’s shears, and I sold him a fine gold
chain for a wish, and right angry my father was, too. But I was only
twelve years old, you know.”
“Why have you never told me this before? What was the wish?”
“The wish? Oh, I wished--I wished I might be perfectly happy,
always;--always happy;--a pretty good wish, I think.”
“A terrible wish! A frightful wish! Tell me--tell me--have you ever
wept since you were twelve years old?”
“Of course not. How absurd. There has never been anything for me to
weep about.”
“That’s it! That’s it! That’s the curse! You can’t weep! You’ve got to
be cured of happiness! Cured of happiness!”
This idea was so preposterous that I laughed loud and long; but while
I was still laughing she took me by the hand and led me into a distant
part of the castle, where I had never been before, until we came to the
foot of a narrow, winding stair in a tall tower.
We climbed the stairs, and stopped at last, panting, on a little
landing before a door. The Princess knocked, and without waiting for
an answer opened the door and drew me in after her. We were in a
small, circular room, evidently at the very top of the tower, from the
windows of which I could see far across the city and beyond the distant
mountains to the Great Sea.
_Alb and the Princess Visit the One-Armed Sorcerer_
In the center of this room was a spinning wheel, and before this
spinning wheel was the One-Armed Sorcerer whom I had met in the
adventure which had gained me the Princess for my wife; a spare old
man, with bright blue eyes in a rosy face and long white hair and
beard, and clothed in a blue gown spangled with silver stars. He rose,
smiling at us kindly, and motioning us with his only hand (his left) to
sit down; and when we were seated, the Princess told him the story of
the old vagabond who had granted me a wish.
He nodded understandingly, and the Princess said: “We have come to you
for help. Will you help him get rid of his curse?”
I laughed merrily. “I’m pretty well satisfied as I am,” I said. “I
don’t wish to be cured of anything.”
“And yet,” said the One-Armed Sorcerer, “you ought to want to be
cured. Your trouble is, that you can’t weep. Let me tell you something.
When people can weep, it’s because there’s some good in them. When they
can’t weep, it’s because all the good in them is frozen up hard. Nobody
can weep all the time, any more than anybody can be happy all the time,
unless it’s a bewitched creature like yourself. I’m not sure which
would be worse, to weep all the time or to be happy all the time; but
one thing I’m sure of, and that is that it’s best for us all to have a
little weeping and a little happiness, sometimes the one and sometimes
the other, woven together in all shades of light and dark; and if you
want to come out in a beautiful pattern at last, there’s no other way
to do it. Laugh and weep; weep and laugh; that’s the whole story, and a
fine story it is too, and well worth having a part in.”
“Oh!” cried the Princess, who was now weeping softly, “will you help
him to have a part in it like the rest of us?”
“I’m very comfortable as I am,” said I, smiling.
“Do you know,” said the Princess, “how to cure him?”
“I can tell him how to cure himself,” said the sorcerer.
“Then please tell us at once!” said the Princess.
“There is danger in it,” said the sorcerer.
“Danger doesn’t bother me,” said I, beginning to take an interest.
“Good,” said the sorcerer. “Then I will tell you. Have you ever heard
of the half-moon pasture of Korbi, by the river Tarn?”
Neither of us had ever heard of it.
“It lies far beyond the Great Sea. Would you like to make a journey
there?”
“That would be jolly!” I cried.
“The half-moon pasture of Korbi is the end of your journey, where you
will get rid of the third black hair, and be cured.”
“What?” I cried in astonishment.
“Yes, the third of the three black hairs in your head.”
I had forgotten all about them. Certainly this was a knowing old
sorcerer.
_The Old Man of Ice, the Laughing Nymph, and the Great Horned Owl_
“I will tell you,” he went on, “what those three black hairs are. The
one on the left side of your head is the Old Man of Ice, who lives in
the Great Cave near the top of Thunder Mountain, in this very island.
The one on the right side of your head is the Laughing Nymph who lives
in the Three-Spire Rock on the farther shore of the Great Sea. The one
in the middle of your head is the Great Horned Owl, whose feathers are
scales so hard that no spear can pierce them, and who lives at the top
of the cliff at the far side of the half-moon pasture of Korbi. You
must not touch the Old Man of Ice. You must not laugh with the Laughing
Nymph. And you must not speak when you see the Great Horned Owl.”
“I don’t like this very much,” said the Princess.
“Nonsense, my dear,” said I. “It sounds very exciting.”
“Do you know what a burning glass is?” went on the sorcerer.
“Yes,” said I.
He went to a chest beside the wall, and took from it a small, round,
thick piece of glass, and placed it in my left hand.
“There is only one thing that can destroy the Old Man of Ice, and that
is a hot beam from the sun. Before you go into his cave, hold this
burning glass with your left hand up to the sun. The rays it catches
will remain in it for seven minutes, and no longer; and if you can then
within those seven minutes, holding the glass in your left hand, fix
those rays on the Old Man of Ice, he will be destroyed, and you will
get rid of the black hair on the left side of your head.”
He went to his chest again, and returning put into my left hand a sharp
brass pin, some three inches in length.
“With this pin,” he said, “you must make the Laughing Nymph weep. You
must plunge it, with your left hand, deep into her left arm, and while
she is weeping you must flee away; and thus you will get rid of the
black hair on the right side of your head. But if you laugh with her,
or remain until she stops weeping, you will never return.”
He took from his spinning wheel a thread some yard and a half long,
and holding it in his teeth made fast a large loop at one end. He then
placed the thread in my left hand.
“This loop,” he said, “you must throw over the head of the Great Horned
Owl with your left hand. When you have done so, he will follow you; you
must lead him into the river Tarn, and hold him there until he drowns;
and thus you will get rid of the black hair in the middle of your head,
and be cured forever. But the owl, though he is blind by day, has very
sharp ears. You must not let him hear your voice.”
_The Burning Glass, the Brass Pin, and the Loop of Thread_
He then gave me the most minute directions how to reach the Great
Cave, the Three-Spire Rock, and the half-moon pasture of Korbi; and
I thereupon placed in my pocket the burning glass, the pin, and the
thread, and drew the Princess after me to the door and down to my room,
where I immediately began my preparations for departure.
That night I left. The Princess wept on my shoulder, but I laughed
gayly, and ridiculed her fears.
“Don’t you feel sorry,” she said, “to leave me?”
“Come, dearest,” I said, “you mustn’t begrudge me a little adventure.
Don’t be selfish.”
She straightened herself up. “Yes,” she said, “I think you had better
go.”
I did not understand this sudden change, but I kissed her and said:
“Did you pack my white leather suit?”
“Yes, it is in the saddlebag, and extra shoes. Be sure to change if you
get your feet wet.”
I kissed my hand to her from the saddle and gave my horse the rein. I
was off upon my adventure.
At the end of two days I came to the village which lies at the foot
of Thunder Mountain. It was a bright day, and the sun was hot. As I
trotted briskly through the village street, a child of three or four
years ran from the door of a house directly to the front of my horse
and under its feet; and in an instant the horse had knocked him down
and trampled over his body. I looked round, and heard the child cry out
in pain; but I was intent on what lay before me, and too happy in my
new career to be bothered with trifles, and I sped on rapidly, and was
soon well up the mountainside.
I came to a place among the rocks and bushes where there was no longer
any trail, and there I tied my horse and left him. I kept in view, as I
climbed higher and higher, a great, gray rock, shaped like a dome and
as big as a house, which projected from the very top of the mountain.
Under this rock, as I knew, lay the cave of the Man of Ice.
The higher I climbed, the steeper grew the ascent; trees became
fewer and at length there were none; I looked abroad and saw, beyond
the intervening mountains, the Great Sea afar off, wrinkling in the
sunshine. I came at last to a point so high that I was quite dizzy when
I looked down. Around me were only bowlders; there were not even any
bushes, nor birds nor squirrels; nothing but rocks and sunshine.
_He Hears Thunder in a Clear Sky_
I stopped suddenly and listened. A distant rumble of thunder came from
the top of the mountain. I was, as I may say, thunderstruck; for there
was not a cloud in the sky. As I mounted higher, the rolling of thunder
became louder and louder; and when I reached, as I did at last after
hours of toil, the dome-shaped rock at the top, thunder crashed all
about me with a deafening roar, although the sky remained as clear as
before.
I halted at the foot of the great rock, and commenced the task of
finding the entrance to the cave. The surface of the rock seemed quite
unbroken; but I found at length, near the ground, a single crack, about
an inch in width. I inserted my fingers, but I could not budge it; and
remembering the directions given me by the sorcerer, I cried out, “In
the name of the sun! I command you, open!”
The rock beneath the crack began to move, and before my astonished eyes
it fell slowly inward, leaving a gaping hole, just wide enough to admit
my body.
I did not delay. I took the burning glass from my pocket and held it
up in my left hand to the sun, and when I thought it well filled with
the sun’s rays I crawled in through the hole. When I was inside, the
opening closed behind me, and I was in utter darkness. It was very
cold, and the noise of thunder was louder than before. I was surprised
to see at a little distance a single spot of light, which flickered
here and there as I crept on; but I soon observed that it came from the
burning glass which I was still holding in my left hand.
_He Goes Down into the Cave in Thunder Mountain_
I was aware that I was going downward. The farther I went, the louder
became the thunder. I must have descended thus for a minute or two,
when a gust of cold air swept my face, and, finding the floor level, I
stood up. The sound of thunder was now deafening, beyond anything I had
yet heard.
As I stood there, a great mass of what appeared to be ice, larger than
my body, rolled past me and disappeared in the darkness. I jumped
aside, and walked on. In another moment a mass of ice like the first
fell at my side and rolled away; a rush of the bitterest cold air
accompanied it; and as it struck the ground a crash of thunder shook
the place, and its sound, as it rolled away into the dark, was the
sound of thunder rumbling afar off among the mountains.
I now understood the origin of the thunder I had heard in the clear
sunlight outside. I pointed my burning glass upward, and I was able to
make out dimly, in the ceiling, great numbers of these bodies of ice,
hanging there like stalactites, but rounded at the bottom and very
slender at the top, so that they appeared to hang by little more than
a thread. As I stumbled on, one after another of these fell to the
ground with a crash and rolled away with a decreasing rumble. There
was no telling when one of them might fall on me, and I could only
trust to luck. There was nothing to do but to get forward as quickly as
possible; time was flying, and even if I should escape these thunder
stones, I had only three or four minutes of my seven left. I darted
blindly on, and the ice came crashing about me faster and faster, until
I thought my head would split with the noise. Once or twice I was
nearly struck. How I escaped I do not know, for it became certain that
the thunder stones were dropping closer and closer around me, as if
they were trying to halt me. And all the time the cold was becoming so
bitter that my feet and legs were already numb.
I suddenly found myself walking on a slippery film of ice, and at that
moment I knew that I had cleared the chamber of thunder, and had left
that danger behind me; the noise abated to a distant rumbling.
The ice on which I walked was very thin, and at every step it crackled
under me; and I could just make out the sound of the rushing beneath
it of a torrent of water. I stepped lightly and quickly, seeing
nothing but the blackness of night before me. I ran. The ice swayed
and crackled and ripped; and just as it gave way under me and my foot
plunged in the freezing water, I found myself again on the solid floor
of the cavern, and ran with all my might. I could see nothing of walls
or ceiling. I was lost in the dark.
In another moment I was aware of a kind of vague paleness afar off
before me, and I ran in that direction. As I did so, the paleness,
whatever it was, moved swiftly to the right, and I changed my course
accordingly. It then moved to the left, and as fast as I changed my
course it moved also; evidently it was trying to avoid me. I gained
on it, and it seemed then to try to pass me on one side and get in my
rear; but I was too quick for it, and came up with it before it had
quite passed me. I came within ten feet of it, and saw what it was.
_He Pursues the Man of Ice with the Burning Glass_
It was the Man of Ice. He was running about like a cornered rat: a
perfectly formed old man, his face and head hairless, and his whole
body of solid ice. He ran jerkily; I could hear his joints crackle
as he ran; and he was almost transparent, and of a pale, greenish
brightness. His fingers were stiff and pointed, like icicles; and his
eyes were like little white marbles.
When he found that he could not pass me, he ran back into the cave; but
we were evidently near its rear wall, and in a moment he was darting
back and forth against this wall, for all the world like a cornered
rat. I kept after him, and flashing the burning glass constantly in his
direction forced him at last into a corner. He turned upon me there,
and stretched out his long stiff fingers and made as if to spring upon
me. I knew that if he should touch me I should be lost; it must be now
or never; I turned the burning glass full upon him, and before he could
spring its little spot of light flickered upon the center of his breast.
The change which came over him nearly caused me to drop the glass.
The top of his head melted away before my eyes and dripped down over
his ears; his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, his chin, turned one after
another to water and flowed down over his shoulders, and as I moved the
beam of sunlight lower and lower he slowly melted away from shoulder to
foot, and was no more than a wet spot on the floor.
_He Commences to Make His Escape from the Cave_
I turned swiftly to make my way out of the cave. As I did so the light
from my burning glass went out, and the cave was suddenly flooded with
pure sunlight, from what source I could not make out. I was in a vast,
vaulted chamber, which I did not remain to examine. I sped to a wide
opening which I saw before me, and passing through it came to the side
of a little brook bordered with golden-yellow flowers. I waded across
the brook; its water was as warm as milk. On the other side I entered
the thunder chamber, now well lit with sunshine, and there I paused in
amazement. It was in perfect silence. The air was mild and balmy. In
place of the terrible stones of ice, thick green vines clung to the
ceiling. I gave a shout of joy, and ran to a little opening which I
saw on the farther side. Through this I crawled, and on my hands and
knees ascended the passage down which I had first come, and arrived at
the entrance to the cave, now closed. “Open!” I shouted. “In the name
of the sun, I command you, open!” The rock fell outward, and I crawled
through into the light of day.
I had gone quite a mile down the mountainside before I realized that
there was no sound of thunder; I looked up at the top of the mountain
and paused to listen; all was silent, sunny, and peaceful. I had
accomplished my first adventure with complete success.
When I reached the village at the foot of the mountain, my first
thought was of the child whom my horse had injured earlier in the day.
I dismounted, and after a few moments’ inquiry found where he lived. I
was admitted to the house by his mother, who led me to an inner room,
where I beheld on a chair by a window an unusually charming little
fellow, with his left arm in a splint. I sat down before him and took
him on my lap and held him carefully in my arms. He took to me at once;
and I was pleased to feel, as his warm little body pressed close to me,
a decided warmth creep slowly and gently into my own heart. I forced
the mother, who was poor, to accept from me the only amends I could
make: a purse of gold from my belt, bestowed with a warm shake of the
hand. As I said good-by, I glanced at the mirror which hung upon the
wall. I went up to it, and looked more intently. The black hair which
had been on the left side of my head was gone.
I pressed on the same night, and arrived in due time at the town of
Ventamere, on the shore of the Great Sea. I bought a boat, not too
large to be handled by a single man, and rigged with a single sail of a
charming orange color, somewhat patched with blue.
Like all the islanders, I knew well how to manage a boat, and I could
see that my little bark was entirely sea-worthy. I provisioned her for
a long voyage, being mindful, of course, of the return. With a light
and favorable wind above and an ebbing tide, I set sail.
_He Sails Across the Great Sea_
As I cleared the bay and encountered the long, smooth roll of the
Great Sea, I thought, sitting with my hand on the tiller, of the dear
Princess whom I had left behind me. I remembered that I had charged her
with selfishness, and I began to doubt whether I had been altogether
just. For the first time within my memory, I felt a little uneasy on
the subject of my own conduct. However, this shadow lasted only a
moment. I sang as I sailed.
The weather was superb, and the sea, under moderate winds, never rose
above a long and quiet swell. During the entire voyage there was
nothing more exciting than an occasional gull on easy wing circling
about the peak of my mast, and the flying fish now and then skimming
low across the surface of the sea.
As I neared the far shore of the Great Sea, the green of the water
became a deep indigo, and I could not but rejoice in the lovely effect
amidst that expanse of rich color of the orange of my sail. I had held
the course prescribed by the sorcerer, and I knew that I should pick up
the Three-Spire Rock on sighting land.
It came to pass as I expected. My faithful boat slipped, early of a
luminous evening, into the placid waters of a little bay. On either
hand a promontory of noble height jutted out into the sea, and from the
shallow water near the shore, against the inmost curve of the beach,
rose in three pinnacles a great, black rock, washed by a gentle and
surfless tide, and towering above as tall as the masts of a ship: the
Three-Spire Rock, beyond a doubt.
I ran my boat almost up to the beach, the tide being at flood, and
anchored there. I put on my fine white leather suit, as being suitable
for the visit I had now to make, and waded ashore with a line which for
further security I made fast to a log partly imbedded in the sand. I
then climbed upon the shoreward side of the Three-Spire Rock, and began
my search for the Laughing Nymph.
I examined every inch of that side of the rock as far as I could climb,
without finding any sign of an opening. I made my way slowly around
the rock to the seaward side, examining it carefully as I went, still
without success. I reached the outer side of the rock in despair.
The light of day was fast waning, and I would soon be forced to give
up my search for the night. The water, which swelled and receded
noiselessly about the rock, became black and unfriendly. It was very
lonesome. Not a gull nor curlew nor sandpiper could be seen anywhere.
The place was too silent altogether. I pressed along the seaward face
of the rock.
Before me, at a little distance, the tide had filled to the brim a sort
of bowl in the rock, open toward the bay, in which the water stood some
five or six feet deep. I came to this bowl and paused to select the
best way for clambering round it. I looked down into the still water
which filled it, and saw there a sight which almost made my heart stop
beating.
_He Finds a Child in a Pool of the Rock_
Floating there was the body of a drowned child. I gave a cry of pity
and stooped down to look at him. It was a naked boy of some two years,
exceedingly beautiful. I stooped lower and gazed into his upturned
face. It was the face of my own child.