Fairy Book Part 9

Not long after this, the king was lost overboard at sea during a storm. Now the people must have a new ruler. They determined to choose a wise and brave man; and, young as he was, no man could be found braver and wiser than Victor: so the people elected him for their king. Thus Fontana's gift of the eyes of Wisdom had made him truly "one of the great men of earth."

In her humble home, Blanche dreamed every night of Victor, and hoped he would grow good, if he did not become great; and Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that her love was his dearest blessing.

"This old palace," thought he, "will never do for my beautiful bride."

So he called together his people, and told them he must have a castle of gems. Some of the walls were to be of rubies, some of emeralds, some of pearls. There was to be any amount of beaten gold for doors and pillars; and the ceilings were to be of milk-white opals, with a rosy light which comes and goes.

All was done as he desired; and, when the castle of gems was finished, it would need a pen of jasponyx dipped in rainbows to describe it.

Victor thought he would not have a guard of soldiers for his castle, but would lock the four golden gates with a magic key, so that no one could enter unless the gates should swing back of their own accord.

When the castle of gems was just completed, and not a soul was in it, Victor locked the gates with a magic key, and then dropped the key into the ocean.

"Now," thought he, "I have done a wise thing. None but the good and true can enter my castle of gems. The gates will not swing open for men with base thoughts or proud hearts!"

Then he hid himself under the shadow of a tree, and watched the people trying to enter. But they were proud men, and so the gates would not open.

King Victor laughed, and said to himself,--

"I have done a wise thing with my magic key. How safe I shall be in my castle of gems!"

So he stepped out of his hiding-place, and said to the people,--

"None but the good and true can get in."

Then he tried to go in himself; but the gates would not move.

The king bowed his head in shame, and walked back to his old palace.

"Alas!" said he to himself, "wise and great as I am, I thought _I_ could go in. I see it must be because I am filled with pride. Let me hide my face; for what would Blanche say if she knew, that, because my heart is proud, I am shut out of my own castle? I am not worthy that she should love me; but I hope I shall learn of her to be humble and good."

The next day he sailed for the home of his childhood. When Blanche saw him, she blushed, and cast down her eyes; but Victor knew they were full of tears of joy. He held her hand, and whispered,--

"Will you go with me and be my bride, beautiful Blanche?"

"I will go with you," she answered softly; and Victor's heart rejoiced.

All the while Blanche never dreamed that he was a great prince, and that the men who came with him were his courtiers.

When they reached Victor's kingdom, and the people shouted "Long live the queen!" Blanche veiled her face, and trembled; for Victor whispered in her ear that the shouts were for her. And, as the people saw her beautiful face through her gossamer veil, they cried all the more loudly,--

"Long live Queen Blanche! Thrice welcome, fair lady!"

The sun was sinking in the west, and his rays fell with dazzling splendor upon the castle of gems. When Blanche saw the silent, closed castle and its golden gates, she remembered the words of Queen Fontana, who had said that her lily should have power to "open the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors."

Like one walking in a dream, she led Victor toward the resplendent castle. She touched, with her lily, the lock which fastened one of the gates.

"Gates of gold could not withstand One touch of that magic wand."

In an instant, the hinges trembled; and the ma.s.sive door swung open so far, that forty people could walk in side by side. Then it slowly closed, and locked itself without noise.

One of the people who pa.s.sed in was the king, whose heart was no longer proud. The others, who had entered unwittingly, could not speak for wonder. Some of them were poor, and some were lame or blind; but all were good and true.

At the rising of the moon a wonderful thing came to pa.s.s. The people entered the castle of gems, and became beautiful. This was through the power of the magic lily.

Now there were no more crooked backs and lame feet and sightless eyes; and the king looked at these people, who were beautiful as well as good, and declared he would have them live in the castle; and the gentlemen should be knights; and the ladies, maids of honor.

To this day Victor and Blanche rule the kingdom; and such is the charm of the lily,--so like the pure heart of the queen,--that the people are becoming gentle and good.

Until Queen Fontana shall call for the magic spectacles and the lily of pearl, it is believed that Victor and Blanche will live in the castle of gems, though the time should be a hundred years.

THE ELF OF LIGHT.

A NORSE TALE.

In the strange island of Iceland, thrown up, by fire, from the depths of the sea, there once lived a lad who worshipped the G.o.d Odin, and was taught from two absurd books called the Eddas. He wished to fight and die on a battle-field, so that his soul might cross a rainbow-bridge, and dwell in the beautiful halls of Valhalla.

There--so the Eddas say--are the chosen heroes, who are forever fighting all day, and feasting all night.

Thus, instead of a Bible, young Thule studied wild fairy-tales; yet, for all his heathenish training, he had some n.o.ble traits, which a Christian lad might imitate.

He lived with his widowed mother at the edge of a forest. The snow piled itself in drifts, and the wind howled through the trees, and crept in at the windows; for the cottage was old, and a blind hurricane might almost have mistaken it for a heap of brushwood. But Thule was quite as happy as if the hut had been a palace. He loved the winter-beauty of his mother's face, and the silvery hair half hidden under her black cap. All the fire they burned was made of the dry sticks he gathered in the forest, and more than half the money they used was earned by his small hands.

In one of the ice-months of the year, when the weather was sharper than a serpent's tooth, Thule came home from a hard day's work; and, the chillier he grew, the more he whistled to keep up a brave heart.

Looking at the horizon before him, he saw the cold glare which we call Northern Lights, but which he knew to be the flickering of helmets and shields and spears.

"The warlike maidens are out to-night," thought the boy: "they are going to the battle-fields to decide who is worthy to be slain. How I love to see the sky lighted up with the flash of their armor! Odin, grant I may one day be a hero, and walk over the bridge of a rainbow!"

Then Thule went to his whistling again; but, just as he struck into the forest where the deep shadows lay, he heard a faint moan, which sounded like a human voice, or might have been a sudden gust of wind in a hollow tree.

"Perchance it is some poor creature even colder than I," thought the boy: "I hope not a _troll_!"

Hurrying to the spot whence the sound came, he found an ugly, long-nosed dwarf lying on the ground, nearly perishing with cold. It was growing late, and the boy himself was benumbed; but he went briskly to work, chafing the hands and face of the stranger, even taking off his own blue jacket to wrap it about the dwarf's neck.

"Poor old soul, you shall not die of cold!" said he; then, helping him to rise, he added cheerily, "We will go to my mother's cottage, and have a warm supper of oat-cakes and herrings; and our fire of dry boughs will do you good."

The n.o.ble boy knew there was barely supper enough for two, but did not mind going hungry to bed for charity's sake. In the ear of his heart, he heard the words of his mother:--

"Never fear starving, my son, but freely share your last loaf with the needy."

They walked through the forest, the old man leaning heavily on the youth's shoulder.

"Why should you befriend a poor wretch who cannot repay you?" whined the dwarf in a hollow voice which startled Thule, it was so like the echo sent back by a mountain or a rock.

"I do not ask or wish to be repaid," was the reply. "Don't you know what the proverb says? 'Do good, and throw it into the sea; if the fishes don't know it, _Odin_ will!'"