The Red Fairy Book Part 23

The next day they were invited again to the King's banquet.

'Hey! old man,' said the witch, 'get on your clothes as quick as you can; we are bidden to the feast. Take you the child; I will give the other one work, lest she weary.'

She kindled the fire, threw a potful of hemp seed among the ashes, and said to the girl:

'If you do not get this sorted, and all the seed back into the pot, I shall kill you!'

The girl wept bitterly; then she went to the birch tree, washed herself on one side of it and dried herself on the other; and this time still finer clothes were given to her, and a very beautiful steed. She broke off a branch of the birch tree, struck the hearth with it, so that the seeds flew into the pot, and then hastened to the castle.

Again the King's son came out to meet her, tied her horse to a pillar, and led her into the banqueting hall. At the feast the girl sat next him in the place of honour, as she had done the day before. But the witch's daughter gnawed bones under the table, and the Prince gave her a push by mistake, which broke her leg--he had never noticed her crawling about among the people's feet. She was VERY unlucky!

The good man's daughter hastened home again betimes, but the King's son had smeared the door-posts with tar, and the girl's golden circlet stuck to it. She had not time to look for it, but sprang to the saddle and rode like an arrow to the birch tree. There she left her horse and her fine clothes, and said to her mother:

'I have lost my circlet at the castle; the door-post was tarred, and it stuck fast.'

'And even had you lost two of them,' answered her mother, 'I would give you finer ones.'

Then the girl hastened home, and when her father came home from the feast with the witch, she was in her usual place behind the stove. Then the witch said to her:

'You poor thing! what is there to see here compared with what WE have seen at the palace? The King's son carried my daughter from one room to another; he let her fall, 'tis true, and my child's foot was broken.'

The man's daughter held her peace all the time, and busied herself about the hearth.

The night pa.s.sed, and when the day began to dawn, the witch awakened her husband, crying:

'Hi! get up, old man! We are bidden to the royal banquet.'

So the old man got up. Then the witch gave him the child, saying:

'Take you the little one; I will give the other girl work to do, else she will weary at home alone.'

She did as usual. This time it was a dish of milk she poured upon the ashes, saying:

'If you do not get all the milk into the dish again before I come home, you will suffer for it.'

How frightened the girl was this time! She ran to the birch tree, and by its magic power her task was accomplished; and then she rode away to the palace as before. When she got to the courtyard she found the Prince waiting for her. He led her into the hall, where she was highly honoured; but the witch's daughter sucked the bones under the table, and crouching at the people's feet she got an eye knocked out, poor thing!

Now no one knew any more than before about the good man's daughter, no one knew whence she came; but the Prince had had the threshold smeared with tar, and as she fled her gold slippers stuck to it. She reached the birch tree, and laying aside her finery, she said:

'Alas I dear little mother, I have lost my gold slippers!'

'Let them be,' was her mother's reply; 'if you need them I shall give you finer ones.'

Scarcely was she in her usual place behind the stove when her father came home with the witch. Immediately the witch began to mock her, saying:

'Ah! you poor thing, there is nothing for you to see here, and WE--ah: what great things we have seen at the palace! My little girl was carried about again, but had the ill-luck to fall and get her eye knocked out.

You stupid thing, you, what do you know about anything?'

'Yes, indeed, what can I know?' replied the girl; 'I had enough to do to get the hearth clean.'

Now the Prince had kept all the things the girl had lost, and he soon set about finding the owner of them. For this purpose a great banquet was given on the fourth day, and all the people were invited to the palace. The witch got ready to go too. She tied a wooden beetle on where her child's foot should have been, a log of wood instead of an arm, and stuck a bit of dirt in the empty socket for an eye, and took the child with her to the castle. When all the people were gathered together, the King's son stepped in among the crowd and cried:

'The maiden whose finger this ring slips over, whose head this golden hoop encircles, and whose foot this shoe fits, shall be my bride.'

What a great trying on there was now among them all! The things would fit no one, however.

'The cinder wench is not here,' said the Prince at last; 'go and fetch her, and let her try on the things.'

So the girl was fetched, and the Prince was just going to hand the ornaments to her, when the witch held him back, saying:

'Don't give them to her; she soils everything with cinders; give them to my daughter rather.'

Well, then the Prince gave the witch's daughter the ring, and the woman filed and pared away at her daughter's finger till the ring fitted. It was the same with the circlet and the shoes of gold. The witch would not allow them to be handed to the cinder wench; she worked at her own daughter's head and feet till she got the things forced on. What was to be done now? The Prince had to take the witch's daughter for his bride whether he would or no; he sneaked away to her father's house with her, however, for he was ashamed to hold the wedding festivities at the palace with so strange a bride. Some days pa.s.sed, and at last he had to take his bride home to the palace, and he got ready to do so. Just as they were taking leave, the kitchen wench sprang down from her place by the stove, on the pretext of fetching something from the cowhouse, and in going by she whispered in the Prince's ear as he stood in the yard:

'Alas! dear Prince, do not rob me of my silver and my gold.'

Thereupon the King's son recognised the cinder wench; so he took both the girls with him, and set out. After they had gone some little way they came to the bank of a river, and the Prince threw the witch's daughter across to serve as a bridge, and so got over with the cinder wench. There lay the witch's daughter then, like a bridge over the river, and could not stir, though her heart was consumed with grief. No help was near, so she cried at last in her anguish:

'May there grow a golden hemlock out of my body! perhaps my mother will know me by that token.'

Scarcely had she spoken when a golden hemlock sprang up from her, and stood upon the bridge.

Now, as soon as the Prince had got rid of the witch's daughter he greeted the cinder wench as his bride, and they wandered together to the birch tree which grew upon the mother's grave. There they received all sorts of treasures and riches, three sacks full of gold, and as much silver, and a splendid steed, which bore them home to the palace. There they lived a long time together, and the young wife bore a son to the Prince. Immediately word was brought to the witch that her daughter had borne a son--for they all believed the young King's wife to be the witch's daughter.

'So, so,' said the witch to herself; 'I had better away with my gift for the infant, then.'

And so saying she set out. Thus it happened that she came to the bank of the river, and there she saw the beautiful golden hemlock growing in the middle of the bridge, and when she began to cut it down to take to her grandchild, she heard a voice moaning:

'Alas! dear mother, do not cut me so!'

'Are you here?' demanded the witch.

'Indeed I am, dear little mother,' answered the daughter 'They threw me across the river to make a bridge of me.'

In a moment the witch had the bridge shivered to atoms, and then she hastened away to the palace. Stepping up to the young Queen's bed, she began to try her magic arts upon her, saying:

'Spit, you wretch, on the blade of my knife; bewitch my knife's blade for me, and I shall change you into a reindeer of the forest.'

'Are you there again to bring trouble upon me?' said the young woman.

She neither spat nor did anything else, but still the witch changed her into a reindeer, and smuggled her own daughter into her place as the Prince's wife. But now the child grew restless and cried, because it missed its mother's care. They took it to the court, and tried to pacify it in every conceivable way, but its crying never ceased.

'What makes the child so restless?' asked the Prince, and he went to a wise widow woman to ask her advice.

'Ay, ay, your own wife is not at home,' said the widow woman; 'she is living like a reindeer in the wood; you have the witch's daughter for a wife now, and the witch herself for a mother-in-law.'

'Is there any way of getting my own wife back from the wood again?'

asked the Prince.

'Give me the child,' answered the widow woman. 'I'll take it with me to-morrow when I go to drive the cows to the wood. I'll make a rustling among the birch leaves and a trembling among the aspens--perhaps the boy will grow quiet when he hears it.'