The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang (interesting novels to read .txt) 📕

`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.’

`Yes, take the child away, take it to the wood with you to quiet

it,’ said the Prince, and led the widow woman into the castle.

`How now? you are going to send the child away to the wood?’

said the witch in a suspicious tone, and tried to interfere.

But the King’s son stood firm by what he had commanded, and

said:

`Carry the child about the wood; perhaps that will pacify it.’

So the widow woman took the child to the wood. She came to

the edge of a marsh, and seeing a herd of reindeer there, she began

all at once to sing—

`Little Bright-eyes, little Redskin,

Come nurse the child you bore!

That bloodthirsty monster,

That man-eater grim,

Shall nurse him, shall tend him no more.

They may threaten and force as they will,

He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’

and immediately the reindeer drew near, and nursed and tended

the child the whole day long; but at nightfall it had to follow the

herd, and said to the widow woman:

`Bring me the child to-morrow, and again the following day;

after that I must wander with the herd far away to other lands.’

The following morning the widow woman went back to the

castle to fetch the child. The witch interfered, of course, but the

Prince said:

`Take it, and carry it about in the open air; the boy is quieter

at night, to be sure, when he has been in the wood all day.’

So the widow took the child in her arms, and carried it to the

marsh in the forest. There she sang as on the preceding day—

`Little Bright-eyes, little Redskin,

Come nurse the child you bore!

That bloodthirsty monster,

That man-eater grim,

Shall nurse him, shall tend him no more.

They may threaten and force as they will,

He turns from her, shrinks from her still,’

and immediately the reindeer left the herd and came to the child,

and tended it as on the day before. And so it was that the child

throve, till not a finer boy was to be seen anywhere. But the

King’s son had been pondering over all these things, and he said to

the widow woman:

`Is there no way of changing the reindeer into a human being

again?’

`I don’t rightly know,’ was her answer. `Come to the wood with

me, however; when the woman puts off her reindeer skin I shall

comb her head for her; whilst I am doing so you must burn the skin.’

Thereupon they both went to the wood with the child; scarcely

were they there when the reindeer appeared and nursed the child

as before. Then the widow woman said to the reindeer:

`Since you are going far away to-morrow, and I shall not see

you again, let me comb your head for the last time, as a

remembrance of you.’

Good; the young woman stript off the reindeer skin, and let

the widow woman do as she wished. In the meantime the King’s

son threw the reindeer skin into the fire unobserved.

`What smells of singeing here?’ asked the young woman, and

looking round she saw her own husband. `Woe is me! you have

burnt my skin. Why did you do that?’

`To give you back your human form again.’

`Alack-a-day! I have nothing to cover me now, poor creature

that I am!’ cried the young woman, and transformed herself first

into a distaff, then into a wooden beetle, then into a spindle, and

into all imaginable shapes. But all these shapes the King’s son

went on destroying till she stood before him in human form again.

Alas! wherefore take me home with you again,’ cried the young

woman, `since the witch is sure to eat me up?’

`She will not eat you up,’ answered her husband; and they

started for home with the child.

But when the witch wife saw them she ran away with her

daughter, and if she has not stopped she is running still, though at

a great age. And the Prince, and his wife, and the baby lived

happy ever afterwards.[9]

[9] From the Russo-Karelian.

ONCE upon a time there was a poor widow who lived in a little

cottage with her only son Jack.

Jack was a giddy, thoughtless boy, but very kind-hearted and

affectionate. There had been a hard winter, and after it the poor

woman had suffered from fever and ague. Jack did no work as yet,

and by degrees they grew dreadfully poor. The widow saw that

there was no means of keeping Jack and herself from starvation

but by selling her cow; so one morning she said to her son, `I am

too weak to go myself, Jack, so you must take the cow to market

for me, and sell her.’

Jack liked going to market to sell the cow very much; but as

he was on the way, he met a butcher who had some beautiful

beans in his hand. Jack stopped to look at them, and the butcher

told the boy that they were of great value, and persuaded the silly

lad to sell the cow for these beans.

When he brought them home to his mother instead of the money

she expected for her nice cow, she was very vexed and shed many

tears, scolding Jack for his folly. He was very sorry, and mother

and son went to bed very sadly that night; their last hope seemed

gone.

At daybreak Jack rose and went out into the garden.

`At least,’ he thought, `I will sow the wonderful beans. Mother

says that they are just common scarlet-runners, and nothing else;

but I may as well sow them.’

So he took a piece of stick, and made some holes in the ground,

and put in the beans.

That day they had very little dinner, and went sadly to bed,

knowing that for the next day there would be none and Jack,

unable to sleep from grief and vexation, got up at day-dawn and

went out into the garden.

What was his amazement to find that the beans had grown up

in the night, and climbed up and up till they covered the high cliff

that sheltered the cottage, and disappeared above it! The stalks

had twined and twisted themselves together till they formed quite

a ladder.

`It would be easy to climb it,’ thought Jack.

And, having thought of the experiment, he at once resolved to

carry it out, for Jack was a good climber. However, after his late

mistake about the cow, he thought he had better consult his mother

first.

So Jack called his mother, and they both gazed in silent wonder

at the Beanstalk, which was not only of great height, but was thick

enough to bear Jack’s weight.

`I wonder where it ends,’ said Jack to his mother; `I think I

will climb up and see.’

His mother wished him not to venture up this strange ladder,

but Jack coaxed her to give her consent to the attempt, for he was

certain there must be something wonderful in the Beanstalk; so at

last she yielded to his wishes.

Jack instantly began to climb, and went up and up on the ladder-like bean till everything he had left behind him—the cottage, the

village, and even the tall church tower—looked quite little, and still

he could not see the top of the Beanstalk.

Jack felt a little tired, and thought for a moment that he would

go back again; but he was a very persevering boy, and he knew

that the way to succeed in anything is not to give up. So after

resting for a moment he went on.

After climbing higher and higher, till he grew afraid to look

down for fear he should be giddy, Jack at last reached the top of

the Beanstalk, and found himself in a beautiful country, finely

wooded, with beautiful meadows covered with sheep. A crystal

stream ran through the pastures; not far from the place where he

had got off the Beanstalk stood a fine, strong castle.

Jack wondered very much that he had never heard of or seen

this castle before; but when he reflected on the subject, he saw that

it was as much separated from the village by the perpendicular

rock on which it stood as if it were in another land.

While Jack was standing looking at the castle, a very strange-looking woman came out of the wood, and advanced towards him.

She wore a pointed cap of quilted red satin turned up with

ermine, her hair streamed loose over her shoulders, and she walked

with a staff. Jack took off his cap and made her a bow.

`If you please, ma’am,’ said he, `is this your house?’

`No,’ said the old lady. `Listen, and I will tell you the story of

that castle.

`Once upon a time there was a noble knight, who lived in this

castle, which is on the borders of Fairyland. He had a fair and

beloved wife and several lovely children: and as his neighbours, the

little people, were very friendly towards him, they bestowed on him

many excellent and precious gifts.

`Rumour whispered of these treasures; and a monstrous giant,

who lived at no great distance, and who was a very wicked being,

resolved to obtain possession of them.

`So he bribed a false servant to let him inside the castle, when

the knight was in bed and asleep, and he killed him as he lay. Then

he went to the part of the castle which was the nursery, and also

killed all the poor little ones he found there.

`Happily for her, the lady was not to be found. She had gone

with her infant son, who was only two or three months old, to visit

her old nurse, who lived in the valley; and she had been detained

all night there by a storm.

`The next morning, as soon as it was light, one of the servants

at the castle, who had managed to escape, came to tell the poor

lady of the sad fate of her husband and her pretty babes. She

could scarcely believe him at first, and was eager at once to go back

and share the fate