Children's Literature Part 42

The next day he kept his word and dug the garden very neatly. The job lasted all day; and in the evening, when his mistress would have sent him away, he said, "I am so tired with my work that I must beg you to let me stay over the night."

The old lady vowed at first she would not do any such thing; but after a great deal of talk he carried his point, agreeing to chop up a whole cart-load of wood for her the next day.

This task too was duly ended; but not till towards night, and then he found himself so tired that he begged a third night's rest; and this too was given, but only on his pledging his word that he next day would fetch the witch the blue light that burnt at the bottom of the well.

When morning came she led him to the well's mouth, tied him to a long rope, and let him down. At the bottom sure enough he found the blue light as the witch had said, and at once made the signal for her to draw him up again. But when she had pulled him up so near to the top that she could reach him with her hands, she said, "Give me the light: I will take care of it,"--meaning to play him a trick by taking it for herself and letting him fall again to the bottom of the well.

But the soldier saw through her wicked thoughts, and said, "No, I shall not give you the light till I find myself safe and sound out of the well."

At this she became very angry and dashed him, with the light she had longed for many a year, down to the bottom. And there lay the poor soldier for a while in despair, on the damp mud below, and feared that his end was nigh. But his pipe happened to be in his pocket still half full, and he thought to himself, "I may as well make an end of smoking you out; it is the last pleasure I shall have in this world." So he lit it at the blue light and began to smoke.

Up rose a cloud of smoke, and on a sudden a little black dwarf was seen making his way through the midst of it. "What do you want with me, soldier?" said he.

"I have no business with you," answered he.

But the dwarf said, "I am bound to serve you in every thing, as lord and master of the blue light."

"Then first of all, be so good as to help me out of this well." No sooner said than done: the dwarf took him by the hand and drew him up, and the blue light of course with him. "Now do me another piece of kindness," said the soldier: "pray let that old lady take my place in the well."

When the dwarf had done this, and lodged the witch safely at the bottom, they began to ransack her treasures; and the soldier made bold to carry off as much of her gold and silver as he well could. Then the dwarf said, "If you should chance at any time to want me, you have nothing to do but to light your pipe at the blue light, and I will soon be with you."

The soldier was not a little pleased at his good luck, and went to the best inn in the first town he came to and ordered some fine clothes to be made and a handsome room to be got ready for him. When all was ready, he called his little man to him and said, "The king sent me away penniless and left me to hunger and want. I have a mind to show him that it is my turn to be master now; so bring me his daughter here this evening, that she may wait upon me and do what I bid her."

"That is rather a dangerous task," said the dwarf. But away he went, took the princess out of her bed, fast asleep as she was, and brought her to the soldier.

Very early in the morning he carried her back; and as soon as she saw her father, she said, "I had a strange dream last night. I thought I was carried away through the air to a soldier's house, and there I waited upon him as his servant." Then the king wondered greatly at such a story; but told her to make a hole in her pocket and fill it with peas, so that if it were really as she said, and the whole was not a dream, the peas might fall out in the streets as she pa.s.sed through, and leave a clue to tell whither she had been taken. She did so; but the dwarf had heard the king's plot; and when evening came, and the soldier said he must bring him the princess again, he strewed peas over several of the streets, so that the few that fell from her pocket were not known from the others; and the people amused themselves all the next day picking up peas and wondering where so many came from.

When the princess told her father what had happened to her the second time, he said, "Take one of your shoes with you and hide it in the room you are taken to."

The dwarf heard this also; and when the soldier told him to bring the king's daughter again, he said, "I cannot save you this time; it will be an unlucky thing for you if you are found out--as I think you will." But the soldier would have his own way. "Then you must take care and make the best of your way out of the city gate very early in the morning,"

said the dwarf.

The princess kept one shoe on as her father bid her, and hid it in the soldier's room; and when she got back to her father, he ordered it to be sought for all over the town; and at last it was found where she had hid it. The soldier had run away, it is true; but he had been too slow and was soon caught and thrown into a strong prison and loaded with chains.

What was worse, in the hurry of his flight, he had left behind him his great treasure, the blue light, and all his gold, and had nothing left in his pocket but one poor ducat.

As he was standing very sorrowful at the prison grating, he saw one of his comrades, and calling out to him said, "If you will bring me a little bundle I left in the inn, I will give you a ducat."

His comrade thought this very good pay for such a job; so he went away and soon came back bringing the blue light and the gold. Then the prisoner soon lit his pipe. Up rose the smoke, and with it came his old friend, the little dwarf. "Do not fear, master," said he: "keep up your heart at your trial and leave everything to take its course;--only mind to take the blue light with you."

The trial soon came on; the matter was sifted to the bottom; the prisoner found guilty, and his doom pa.s.sed:--he was ordered to be hanged forthwith on the gallows-tree.

But as he was led out, he said he had one favor to beg of the king.

"What is it?" said his majesty.

"That you will deign to let me smoke one pipe on the road."

"Two, if you like," said the king.

Then he lit his pipe at the blue light, and the black dwarf was before him in a moment. "Be so good as to kill, slay, or put to flight all these people," said the soldier: "and as for the king, you may cut him into three pieces."

Then the dwarf began to lay about him, and soon got rid of the crowd around: but the king begged hard for mercy; and, to save his life, agreed to let the soldier have the princess for his wife and to leave the kingdom to him when he died.

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The following tale is from Taylor's translation of Grimm. The cheerful industry and the kindly grat.i.tude of the shoemaker and his wife, together with the gayety of the little elves, make the story altogether charming. No doubt its popularity was helped by Cruikshank's famous accompanying etching, showing the scene at the close, in which the two elves "are drawn with a point at once so precise and vivacious, so full of keen fun and inimitably happy invention, that I have not found their equal in comic etching anywhere. . . . The picturesque details of the room are etched with the same felicitous intelligence; but the marvel of the work is in the expression of the strange little faces, and the energy of the comical wee limbs." (Hamerton, _Etching and Etchers_.)

THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER

There was once a shoemaker who worked very hard and was very honest; but still he could not earn enough to live upon, and at last all he had in the world was gone, except just leather enough to make one pair of shoes. Then he cut them all ready to make up the next day, meaning to get up early in the morning to work. His conscience was clear and his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, left all his cares to heaven, and fell asleep. In the morning, after he had said his prayers, he set himself down to his work, but to his great wonder, there stood the shoes, all ready made, upon the table. The good man knew not what to say or think of this strange event. He looked at the workmanship: there was not one false st.i.tch in the whole job, and all was so neat and true that it was a complete masterpiece.

That same day a customer came in, and the shoes pleased him so well that he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them; and the poor shoemaker with the money bought leather enough to make two pairs more.

In the evening he cut out the work and went to bed early that he might get up and begin betimes next day: but he was saved all the trouble, for when he got up in the morning the work was finished ready to his hand.

Presently in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought leather enough for four pairs more. He cut out the work again over night, and found it finished in the morning as before; and so it went on for some time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and the good man soon became thriving and prosperous again.

One evening about Christmas time, as he and his wife were sitting over the fire chatting together, he said to her, "I should like to sit up and watch to-night, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for me." The wife liked the thought; so they left a light burning and hid themselves in the corner of the room behind a curtain that was hung up there, and watched what should happen.

As soon as it was midnight, there came two little naked dwarfs; and they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, st.i.tching and rapping and tapping away at such a rate that the shoemaker was all amazement and could not take his eyes off for a moment. And on they went till the job was quite finished, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. This was long before daybreak; and then they bustled away as quick as lightning.

The next day the wife said to the shoemaker, "These little wights have made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them and do them a good office in return. I am quite vexed to see them run about as they do; they have nothing upon their backs to keep off the cold. I'll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; do you make each of them a little pair of shoes."

The thought pleased the good shoemaker very much; and one evening, when all the things were ready, they laid them on the table instead of the work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves to watch what the little elves would do. About midnight they came in and were going to sit down to their work as usual; but when they saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and were greatly delighted. Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and capered and sprang about as merry as could be, till at last they danced out at the door and over the green; and the shoemaker saw them no more; but everything went well with him from that time forward, as long as he lived.

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In a note regarding "The Fisherman and His Wife," Taylor calls attention to the interesting fact that this tale became a great favorite after the battle of Waterloo "during the fervor of popular feeling on the downfall of the late Emperor of France." The catastrophe attendant upon Napoleon's ambitious efforts seemed to the popular mind to be paralleled by the penalty following the final wish of the wife "to be like unto G.o.d." But observe that Taylor, unlike more recent translators, felt under the necessity of softening "the boldness of the lady's ambition." The versions of the verse charm used in summoning the fish differ strikingly in the various translations. That of Taylor's first edition, used here, seems to fit the story better than any other, though tellers of the story may, properly enough, not agree.

Taylor's revised version of 1837 reads:

"O man of the sea!

Hearken to me!

My wife Ilsabill Will have her own will, And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!"

Mrs. Hunt's version runs:

"Flounder, flounder in the sea, Come, I pray thee, come to me; For my wife, good Ilsabil, Wills not as I'd have her will."

The moral of the story is plain for those who need it: Greed overreaches itself. Who grasps too much loses all. Don't ride a free horse to death.

THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE

There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a ditch, close by the sea-side. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the sh.o.r.e with his rod, looking at the shining water and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep under the sea: and in drawing it up he pulled a great fish out of the water. The fish said to him, "Pray let me live: I am not a real fish; I am an enchanted prince. Put me in the water again, and let me go."

"Oh!" said the man, "you need not make so many words about the matter. I wish to have nothing to do with a fish that can talk; so swim away as soon as you please." Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom and left a long streak of blood behind him.