was seen gliding up and down the blue waters of Lake Geneva. Neither
oars nor sails were needed to speed it over the waves, for it was drawn
by singing swans and carried a fairy crew. A radiant creature in a robe
whiter than goat’s milk stood on the prow, her gleaming hair rippling
down over the hem of her garment. She bore a golden basket of rare fruits
and flowers, and although she scattered the contents with lavish hand
upon the sprites at her feet, it was never empty. Sometimes the vessel
touched the shore, and then the soil around that spot produced as never
soil produced before or since, and if any peasant was so fortunate as to
catch a glimpse of the boat, he and his children became rich beyond want
and were blessed and happy to the end of their days.
For hundreds of years the magic ship sailed the lake, and as it touched
the shore frequently and numbers of peasants saw it, there was wonderful
prosperity in Old Helvetia.
But a great misfortune befell the country and the glad, abundant days
became but a memory. A steamboat was brought to Geneva, and it plowed,
a screaming, snorting monster, across the waters. The noise terrified
the gentle swans, and with one wild cry they flew away. Never again did
the peasants catch a glimpse of the white-robed fairy and the shining
sprites. Never again did the music of the snowy pilots gladden their ears.
The Luck Boat disappeared, and with it went prosperity from the land of
Geneva. But marvelous things like that are never forgotten. Those who
had seen the fairy craft in their youth told the story to their sons
and daughters, who passed it on to their children and their children’s
children, and although the mountain folk of today have never beheld
it, they know just how it looked. They have pictured it so often in
their minds, that their artists have pictured it on paper, and so it
has become the custom for the peasants around Lake Geneva to send “Luck
cards” to their friends on New Year’s Day. These are gay, colored postals
containing a likeness of the Luck Boat, and to those of whom a peasant
is fondest he sends as many as he can afford, because to receive them
is supposed to bring good fortune, just as a glimpse of the swan-drawn
vessel was said to do in the marvelous long ago.
WHY THE JAPANESE LOVE THE STORK
A JAPANESE LEGEND
(_Geography_)
Ages ago, in the Japanese city of Nagasaki, there lived a young and
handsome noble named Vasobiove. Life seemed very beautiful to him. He
loved the blossoms that are so sweet and abundant in his native Saikaido,
loved the racing and the wrestling matches, the sunset on the purple Gulf
of Sinabara, the evening festivals with the dances of the geisha girls,
and his only sorrow was the thought that he could not live forever.
“Alas, to have to leave this beautiful world!” he often sighed.
At which his old father would say, “Fear not, my son. By the time you are
threescore years and ten you will think differently.”
But the young noble would shake his head and reply, “Nay, nay, I want to
live always, always.”
One day an aged pilgrim came into Nagasaki and rested on a stone outside
Vasobiove’s garden. The owner was walking under the tulip trees, and
seeing the sad-looking man in the sun and dust of the road, called and
bade him come into the shade of his park.
Leaning heavily upon his staff, the wanderer came and sat down beside the
fountain, and the young noble asked him many a question of lands and men
he had seen.
“Is it throughout the world as here in Japan,” he questioned, “that
people must die even while they yearn to live?”
The aged pilgrim nodded.
“Yea,” he answered, “in all the lands through which I have journeyed. But
men have told me that there is a region where death never comes.”
The young noble leaned forward eagerly. “Where is it,” he questioned,
“ah, where? Tell me, for I mean to go to that land.”
The pilgrim shook his head, saying, “That you cannot do, my son. It is
in the Happy Islands of Everlasting Life, but although mortals have seen
them in the distance, never has one succeeded in entering there.”
“But I must, I will reach that land!” Vasobiove exclaimed.
His father, who was old and wise, begged him not to go.
“You will perish on the way,” he said sorrowfully. “But even if you reach
and enter the islands, you will not be happy. That which is best for us
is given to us, and after a long life, death is good.”
But Vasobiove shook his head and objected, “No, no! I go to the
Everlasting Islands.” And the next day he set out from Nagasaki in a boat.
Straight southward he journeyed and eastward. Storms raged and tropic
heat beat fiercely on his head, but he pressed onward, and at last, in
spite of wave and tempest, reached the green shore of Horaisan. It was
the land no mortal had ever entered, the Happy Islands of Everlasting
Life.
Vasobiove’s cup of joy was full. There was no sorrow there, no birth
or death, no tempest and black weather or flight of time—nothing but
dancing, music, splendid men and beautiful women, with enchanted flowers
of unfading beauty in the groves and gardens, and always iridescent
reaches of the sea beyond. There were wrestling matches, such as were not
dreamed of in Nagasaki, long days filled with feasting, and long nights
of dance and song.
Vasobiove smiled the smile of the contented.
“At last!” he said. “It is good to know that I shall live forever.”
Two hundred years he spent in the eternal mirth of Horaisan, and then,
somehow, he longed for other things. The music he had loved grew
wearisome, the never ending dance became hateful to his eyes.
He wanted to return to Nagasaki, but there was no way. The boat that had
carried him to the islands had long since fallen into decay, and it was
impossible to get another. He must stay forever and ever in the land of
dance and song, and the thought became hideous.
Then he heard a weird cry. Looking behind him, he saw a giant stork
settling on the bank of a lake to catch some of the rainbow fish within.
A happy thought came to him. No, he would not dwell eternally in
Horaisan. He would go back to Nagasaki.
Catching the bird, he tamed it, and one morning while the islanders
reveled and the sea was as many colored as the enchanted blossoms in the
gardens, he flew away, borne by the giant stork back to the sweet land of
Saikaido, back to the shining Gulf of Sinabara, and his native Nagasaki.
He would live as his fathers had lived, he would die when his time came,
and never again would he pine for a land where all was revelry and beauty
and song.
Ever since that time the Japanese have loved the stork. They picture it
upon their royal banners and upon the walls of their houses, and give
it the freedom of their gardens. Whenever a youth becomes dissatisfied
and yearns for a land where delights are never ending, they tell him the
story of the man who went to the Everlasting Islands, show a picture of
the stork that carried him back to Nagasaki, and say,
“Even as it was with Vasobiove, so would it be with you.”
WHY GRIZZLY BEAR GOES ON ALL FOURS
A SHASTA LEGEND. ADAPTED FROM BANCROFT
(_Indian Folk Tale—Geography—Ethics_)
Ages ago, before there were any mountains or valleys or rivers flowing
seaward, Great Spirit lived up in the sky, higher than the most distant
star. All about him were snow heaps and white cloud billows, so thick he
could not see through them, and he wondered what lay beyond.
“I will make a hole and see,” he said.
So, taking a sharp rock, he bored an opening through the cloud floor and
looked below. A strange sight met his eyes. There lay the world, but a
very different world from the one we know. It was flat like a table, with
no hills or valleys, or rivers, or growing things, and Great Spirit said,
“I will build a teepee there, and then I shall make it better.”
The snow heaps lying around him made him think of a good way of building
a wigwam; so he pushed some down through the floor window, working day
and night through many, many moons, until he had the pyramid white men
call Mount Shasta. He built a fire and lived in the teepee, and then he
walked abroad.
It was a fine land for a home, but lonely and too flat. He wanted
mountains and valleys; so he created them. Then he wanted living and
growing things about him; so he said, “I will make men and animals too.”
He dug holes in the ground with his fingers, some large, some small, and
when he breathed into them, trees of many sizes and kinds rose out of
the earth. Then he stripped leaves from the branches and scattered them
about, and they became men. He caused snow from the mountain sides to
melt and flow in streams, and now, instead of the flat, brown vastness,
there were uplands and lowlands, green fields and snowy peaks, and rivers
running seaward, and other leaves stripped from the branches and torn
into bits became fishes that swim.
“Now I shall make beasts of every kind,” he said, and as he spoke he
smote down a mighty tree. He broke it into pieces, some large, some
small, which he turned into animals of various sizes and varying
strength. Grizzly Bear he created from the heaviest part of the trunk,
and the bear stood before him, on his hind legs, straight and powerful
like a young hunter, stronger than any other creature of the earth.
It pleased Great Spirit to have living creatures around him, and he did
not go back to the cloud world, but stayed in the teepee. The Indians
knew he was inside, because often they saw the smoke from his flaming
coals curl far above the peaks.
Many, many moons he dwelt there and grew so lonely that he sent for
Little Daughter. She came and lived with him, made his moccasins and
tended his fire, and was happy.
One day there was a mighty storm. The wind raged fiercely, sending the
smoke back through the smoke hole into Great Spirit’s face. He did not
like that, and bade Little Daughter go up to command the wind to stop.
She did as she was told, and put her head out through the hole to call to
the wind. But never having beheld the world before, she grew very curious
at the strange sights that met her eyes, and leaned out far, far, to see
all she could.
Suddenly she fell, and the wind carried her to the land of the Grizzly
Bear. Little Daughter did not want to stay there and begged to be taken
back to the teepee of her father.
“Let her stay here and work for me,” Mother Grizzly growled, and Young
Grizzly agreed, saying, “Yes, let her work.”
So they would neither go with her nor let her try to find the way herself.
Great Spirit knew Little Daughter was in the land of the Grizzly Bear,
and he went to take her home. When she told him how she had begged to go
back, but was forced to stay and work, he was very angry.
“I shall punish you,” he said to the bears. “Never again shall you walk
upright like a man; always you must go on all fours.”
Taking Little Daughter, he went back to the snow teepee, and they lived
there for ages and ages, always keeping the fire burning, and always the
Indians saw the smoke come out through the smoke hole.
At last the white men came, and as Great Spirit did not like the
palefaces, he went away and the fire died out. But the teepee they call
Mount Shasta is still there, although smoke no longer curls above it, and
Grizzly Bear still goes on all fours, never standing upright except when
he is fighting.
THE LUCK BOY OF TOY VALLEY
(_Geography—Ethics—Manual Training_)
In a chalet high up among the Austrian mountains, blue-eyed Franz was
very unhappy because his mother and brother Johan were going to Vienna
and he had to stay at home with his old grandfather. He bit his lips to
keep back the tears as he watched the packing of the box that was to
carry their clothing. Then his mother tried to comfort him.
“Never mind, lad,” she said. “I’ll send you a present from Vienna, and
we’ll call it a ‘luck gift’ and hope it will bring good luck. If it does
you’ll be a luck boy.”
He smiled even if he did feel sad. He had often heard of luck children,
for among the Tyrolean peasants there were many stories of those who
had been led by fairies to have such wonderful good fortune that ever
afterward they were spoken of as the elf-aided, or “Glücks Kinder,” and
it was so delightful to think about being one of them that he forgot his
sorrow. Of course it would be very fine to travel down to Vienna and go
into the service of a rich noble there, as his mother and brother were to
do, but it would be still better to be a “Glücks Kind,” and such things
sometimes did happen. So he did not feel sad any more, but whistled and
sang and helped with the packing.
Early next morning the post chaise rattled up to the door, and Johan and
the mother drove away. Franz watched them go down the winding white road,
calling after them in sweet Tyrolean words of endearment until they were
out of sight. Then he went back into the hut and began to sandpaper some
blocks that his grandfather needed for his work. The old man was a maker
of picture frames, all carved and decorated with likenesses of mountain
flowers, and these, when sent to Innsbruck and Vienna, brought the money
that gave him his living. The figures were too fine and difficult
for Franz to carve, but he could lend a hand at fetching blocks and
sandpapering. He worked with a vim, for Tyrolean boys think it a disgrace
to shirk, but all the while his thoughts were on the luck gift.
“I wonder what it will be?” he said to his grandfather. They took turns
at guessing, until it was time to feed the goats and house the chickens
for the night.
A week later the man who had driven Johan and his mother away came by on
his return from Vienna, and Franz fairly flew out to get his gift.
“It is something very big,” he called to the old frame maker as he took a
bulging bag. “See, it is stuffed full!” And he expected to find something
very wonderful.
But when he opened it, he thought it wasn’t wonderful at all. There was a
blue velvet jacket, trimmed with gold braid and fastened with glittering
buttons, such as Tyrolean boys wore in those days, and in one of the
pockets he found a shining knife.
“Well, of all things!” he exclaimed as he held them up for his
grandfather to see. “It’s a splendid jacket, and the knife is a beauty,
but I don’t see where the luck part comes in.”
But Hals Berner was old and wise, and a knowing smile played over his
wrinkled face as he spoke. “It won’t be the first time luck has hidden in
a knife,” he said, as he bent over his carving.
Franz did not know what he meant. He had always had a knife, for being
of a carver’s family he was taught to whittle when he was a very little
fellow, and he had become remarkably skillful for one of his years. But
no wonderful good fortune had come to him, and he was very sure that
although each of the presents was nice, neither would bring luck, and he
sent that word to Johan. But the brother wrote back from the city, “It
will surely turn out to be a luck gift, Franz. Just wait and see.” And
still the boy wondered.
Winter came and icy winds blew down from the peaks. There was no word
from Vienna now, for the valley was shut in by a glittering wall, and
travel over the snow-drifted passes was impossible. There were other boys
in the village, but each had his work indoors, and there was little time
to play, so Franz had no chance for games. He helped his grandfather part
of the day and sometimes whittled for his own amusement. It was a lonely
life there in the hut, with just the old frame maker, who was often too
busy to talk, so Franz was glad to do something to keep him busy. Now he
made rings and tops and then just fantastic sticks or blocks.
One day, as he whittled, his grandfather said, “Why don’t you make an
animal, Franz?”
The boy looked up in surprise. “I don’t think I can,” he answered.
“Not unless you try,” came the reply. “But if you do that you may
surprise yourself.”
Franz hated to have any one think he was afraid to make an attempt, so he
exclaimed, “I wonder if I could make a sheep?”
“Begin and see,” the old man advised.
The boy went to work. At first it was discouraging. After many minutes
of whittling there was little to suggest what he had in mind. But then,
with an occasional turn of the knife by the frame maker, and now and then
a bit of advice, the boy began to see that a sheep would grow out of the
block, and when it did he felt like a hero who has won a battle.
“It wasn’t a bit hard, was it, lad?” Hals Berner asked when it was
finished.
And Franz agreed that it was not.
That was the beginning, and every day thereafter Franz worked at his
whittling, and animal after animal grew under his knife. He was so busy
he did not have time to be lonely, and had quite forgotten how sad he
had felt over having to stay at home. It was such fun to see the figures
come out of the wood and feel that he had made them. Of course they were
crude, and not half so handsome as those his grandfather could have made;
but any one could tell what they were, and that was worth a great deal.
By spring he had a whole menagerie, and when his mother came home she
found he had been a busy boy, and a happy one as well.
“All made with the luck knife,” Johan said as he looked over the work.
“So grandfather says,” Franz answered. “It’s a splendid knife, but I
don’t see yet where the luck comes in.”
And again the knowing smile went over the old man’s face.
One day soon afterward his mother had word from the man who had been her
employer in Vienna that his little son was not well, and he was sending
him to regain his health in the mountain air. A week later the child
arrived with his nurse, and the first thing that attracted his attention
was Franz’s menagerie.
“Oh! oh!” he exclaimed, “dogs, cats, sheep, goats, lions, elephants, and
all made of wood! I want them.”
“He means that he wants to buy them,” his nurse explained. “Will you sell
them, Franz?”
For a minute the boy hesitated. That menagerie had meant many months
of whittling, and he loved every animal in it, and if Johan hadn’t
interrupted, probably he would have refused.
“Why, Franz,” the brother exclaimed, “it begins to look like a luck knife
after all.”
That put a thought into his mind that caused him to answer, “Yes, take
them. I can make some more.”
So, when the child went back to Vienna he took a wooden menagerie from
the Tyrolean mountains. Other Viennese children, seeing it, wanted to
possess one, and orders began to pour in to Franz, far more than he could
fill. Then other villagers took up the work, until all over the valley
people were making animals and toys.
The work grew to be a big industry, and toys from the Grödner Thal were
sent all over Germany, and even to the lands beyond. One generation after
another went on with the work, and although it is two hundred years since
Franz began it, the craft continues there to this day. At Christmas time
shops in every land are filled with toys from the Tyrolean mountains,
and although they do not know the story, thousands of children have been
happier because of a peasant boy’s whittling.
So out of the bag sent back from Vienna there came in truth a luck gift,
and it wasn’t the fine jacket either, but the knife with which Franz
whittled his first sheep. The boy had found out that luck doesn’t mean
something sent by fairies, but the doing a thing so well that it brings
a rich reward, and although he lived to be a very old man, he never got
over being grateful that his mother made him stay behind when she and
Johan went to the city.
The little valley among the Austrian Alps is still called Grödner Thal
on the maps, but because of the animals and toys that have come out of
it, it is almost as well known by another name. If you are good guessers
you can surely tell what it is, especially if you know that the peasants
still speak of the lad who made the first menagerie there as the Luck Boy
of Toy Valley.
THE EMPEROR’S VISION
ADAPTED FROM THE SWEDISH OF SELMA LAGERLÖF
From Lagerlöf’s _Christ Legends_. Copyright, 1908, by Henry Holt & Co.
(_Medieval Legend—Ethics_)
When Augustus was Emperor of Rome and Herod was King of Jerusalem, a
great and holy night sank down over the earth. It was the darkest night
that any one had seen, and one could not find the way on the most
familiar road. How could it be otherwise, since all the stars stayed at
home in their houses and the fair moon hid her face?
The silence was as profound as the darkness. The rivers stood still in
their courses, the wind did not stir, and even the aspen leaves had
ceased to quiver. Everything was as motionless as if turned to stone, and
the grass was afraid to grow, lest it disturb the holy night.
There was no cruelty or wickedness. Wild beasts did not seek their prey,
but lay in the forest depths and wondered; serpents did not sting or dogs
bark, and no false key could have picked a lock, no knife could have
drawn a drop of blood.
In Rome, the mighty city, a group of people came from the Emperor’s
palace at the Palatine and took the path across the Forum which led to
the Capitol. During the day the senators had asked the Emperor if he
had any objection to their erecting a temple in his honor on Rome’s
sacred hill, but he had given no answer. He did not know if it would be
agreeable to the gods for him to own a temple next to theirs, and he
wanted to ascertain their will in the matter by offering a sacrifice.
Therefore he and his trusted friends were on their way to the Capitol.
Augustus let them carry his litter, for he was old and the stairs leading
to the Capitol were long. He held in his hands the cage of doves for
the sacrifice. No priests or soldiers accompanied him, only his nearest
friends. Torch bearers walked in front of him to light the ways through
the black darkness, and behind him followed slaves who carried the
tripod, knives, and charcoal for the sacred fire. He chatted gayly with
his followers, and all were so interested in the conversation that they
did not notice the stillness over the earth. Only when they reached the
highest point on Capitol Hill did they realize that something unusual was
taking place.
There they saw a most remarkable thing. An old woman, so bent and
twisted that at first they thought it must be a distorted olive tree, was
standing on the very edge of the cliff, and they knew her to be the sibyl
who had lived as many years as the sand grains by the sea.
“Why does she come from her cave tonight?” they whispered. “What does she
foretell for the Emperor and the Empire?”
She stood there as if she had gone up on the hillside that she might see
what was happening far away, and the night was so dark, so dark!
Then Augustus and his retinue remarked how profound was the stillness.
They could not hear even Tiber’s hollow murmur, and they feared some
disaster was impending. But no one cared to show that he was afraid. They
told Augustus it was a good omen, and counseled him to hurry with the
sacrifice.
The sibyl seemed not to notice the Emperor’s train moving up to the
Capitol. In fact, she did not see them. She was in a distant land making
her way over something higher than grass tufts. She was walking among
great flocks of sleeping sheep.
Then she saw a shepherd’s fire. It burned in the middle of the field,
and she groped her way to it. The shepherds lay asleep in its glow, and
beside them were the long, spiked sticks with which they defended their
flocks from wild beasts. Jackals with glittering eyes and bushy tails
stole up toward the blaze, but the men did not hurl the sticks at them.
The dogs continued to sleep, the sheep did not flee, and the beasts of
prey lay down to rest beside human beings.
Only this the sibyl saw. She did not know that a sacrificial fire was
being kindled behind her. She did not see the Roman Emperor take a dove
from the cage to use as an offering. She was in the far hills of Galilee,
among slumbering shepherds and sheep.
Then, wonderful sight, a company of angels singing gloriously flew back
and forth above the wide plain. They moved in long, swaying lines like
migratory birds. Some held lutes in their hands, some zithers and harps,
and their songs rang out as merry as child laughter, as carefree as lark
trills. The shepherds wakened, marveling at what they heard and saw, then
rose up to go to the mountain city to tell of the miracle.
Behind the sibyl, on the summit of Capitol Hill, still stood the train
of Augustus. But he did not make the sacrifice. Although he exerted his
full strength to hold the dove’s frail body, it flung itself free and
disappeared into the night.
And the shepherds, what of them?
They groped their way forward on a narrow, winding path. Suddenly, in the
light up there on the mountain, a great heavenly body kindled, and the
city beneath it glittered like silver in the starlight.