Chapter II: Part 2

“Tweet, tweet,” she heard at this moment above her head. She looked up; it was the swallow just passing. As soon as it saw Thumbeline it was delighted; she told it how unwilling she was to have the ugly mole for a husband, and that she was to live deep down underground where the sun never shone. She could not help crying about it.

“The cold winter is coming,” said the swallow, “and I am going to fly away to warm countries. Will you go with me? You can sit upon my back! Tie yourself on with your sash, then we will fly away from the ugly mole and his dark cavern, far away over the mountains to those warm countries where the sun shines with greater splendour than here, where it is always summer and there are heaps of flowers. Do fly with me, you sweet little Thumbeline, who saved my life when I lay frozen in the dark earthy passage.”

“Yes, I will go with you,” said Thumbeline, seating herself on the bird’s back with her feet on its outspread wings. She tied her band tightly to one of the strongest feathers, and then the swallow flew away, high up in the air above forests and lakes, high up above the biggest mountains where the snow never melts; and Thumbeline shivered in the cold air, but then she crept under the bird’s warm feathers, and only stuck out her little head to look at the beautiful sights beneath her.

Then at last they reached the warm countries. The sun shone with a warmer glow than here; the sky was twice as high, and the most beautiful green and blue grapes grew in clusters on the banks and hedgerows. Oranges and lemons hung in the woods which were fragrant with myrtles and sweet herbs, and beautiful children ran about the roads playing with the large, gorgeously-coloured butterflies. But the swallow flew on and on, and the country grew more and more beautiful. Under magnificent green trees on the shores of the blue sea stood a dazzling white marble palace of ancient date; vines wreathed themselves round the stately pillars. At the head of these there were countless nests, and the swallow who carried Thumbeline lived in one of them.

“Here is my house,” said the swallow; “but if you will choose one of the gorgeous flowers growing down there I will place you in it, and you will live as happily as you can wish.”

“That would be delightful,” she said, and clapped her little hands.

A great white marble column had fallen to the ground and lay there broken in three pieces, but between these the most lovely white flowers grew. The swallow flew down with Thumbeline and put her upon one of the broad leaves; what was her astonishment to find a little man in the middle of the flower, as bright and transparent as if he had been made of glass. He had a lovely golden crown upon his head and the most beautiful bright wings upon his shoulders; he was no bigger than Thumbeline. He was the fairy of the flowers. There was a similar little man or woman in every flower, but he was the king of them all.

“How very beautiful he is,” whispered Thumbeline to the swallow. The little prince was quite frightened by the swallow, for it was a perfect giant of a bird to him, he who was so small and delicate, but when he saw Thumbeline he was delighted; she was the very prettiest girl he had ever seen. He therefore took the golden crown off his own head and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and then she would be queen of the flowers! Yes, he was certainly a very different kind of husband from the toad’s son, or the mole with his black velvet coat. So she accepted the beautiful prince, and out of every flower stepped a little lady or a gentleman so lovely that it was a pleasure to look at them. Each one brought a gift to Thumbeline, but the best of all was a pair of pretty wings from a large white butterfly; they were fastened on to her back, and then she too could fly from flower to flower. All was then delight and happiness, but the swallow sat alone in his nest and sang to them as well as he could, for his heart was heavy, he was so fond of Thumbeline himself and would have wished never to part from her.

“You shall not be called Thumbeline,” said the flower-fairy to her; “that is such an ugly name, and you are so pretty. We will call you Maia.”

* * * * *

Of course the Fairy Prince’s story was quite true, and as proof of it there was Thumbeline, or Maia, as she was sometimes called, sitting not very far away in the very front circle of fairies, and having made his bow to the king and queen, the little prince stepped proudly back to his seat by her side, and all the fairies loudly cheered the pretty couple. When the cheering had stopped it was seen that there were several of the company trying to get on the tale-tellers’ stool at once, all anxious to win such cheering. King Oberon’s trumpeter, standing on the steps of the throne, blew loudly and the squabble stopped at once, each of the competitors turning round and expecting to be told that he was the favoured one, but Oberon was too wise for that and bade them all go back to their places and not to come forward again until called upon to do so, and he then turned to Titania and said:

“Our queen shall select the next tale-teller. Who, my Titania, shall it be?”

And the queen pointed out a little fairy dressed all in green with a tiny golden harp in her hand and with a wreath of shamrock round her head, saying:

“Let an Irish fairy tell us something of the doings in her green land.”

The little one in green at once came forward and said that the story she had to tell would not be a pretty one such as that about Thumbeline, but it would be about one of those mischievous changelings who got the fairies such a bad name among some people, and her story would be called

The Young Piper

There lived on the borders of the county of Tipperary a decently honest couple whose names were Mick Flanigan and Judy Muldoon. These poor people were blessed, as the saying is, with four children, all boys: three of them were as fine, stout, healthy, good-looking children as ever the sun shone upon; and it was enough to make any Irishman proud of his countrymen to see them about one o’clock on a fine summer day standing at their father’s cabin door, with their beautiful flaxen hair hanging in curls about their heads, and their cheeks like two rosy apples, and a big laughing potato smoking in their hands. A proud man was Mick of these fine children, and a proud woman, too, was Judy; and reason enough they had to be so. But it was far otherwise with the remaining one, which was the third eldest: he was the most miserable, ugly, ill-conditioned brat you ever saw: he was so ill-thriven that he never was able to stand alone, or to leave the cradle; he had long, shaggy, matted, curled hair, as black as the soot; his face was of a greenish-yellow colour; his eyes were like two burning coals, and were for ever moving in his head, as if they had had the perpetual motion. Before he was a twelvemonth old he had a mouthful of great teeth; his hands were like kite’s claws, and his legs were no thicker than the handle of a whip, and about as straight as a reaping hook: to make the matter worse, he had the appetite of a cormorant, and the whinge, and the yelp, and the screech, and the yowl was never out of his mouth.

The neighbours all suspected that he was something not right, particularly as it was observed, when people, as they do in the country, got about the fire and began to talk of religion and good things, the brat, as he lay in the cradle, which his mother generally put near the fire-place that he might be snug, used to sit up, as they were in the middle of their talk, and begin to bellow as if the devil was in him in right earnest: this, as I said, led the neighbours to think that all was not right, and there was a general consultation held one day about what would be best to do with him. Some advised one thing, and some another; at last one spoke of sending for the priest, who was a very holy and a very learned man, to see it. To this Judy of course had no objection, but one thing or another always prevented her doing so, and the upshot of the business was that the priest never saw him.

Things went on in the old way for some time longer. The brat continued yelping and yowling, and eating more than his three brothers put together, and playing all sorts of unlucky tricks, for he was mighty mischievously inclined; till it happened one day that Tim Carrol, the blind piper, going his rounds, called in and sat down by the fire to have a bit of chat with the woman of the house. So after some time, Tim, who was no churl of his music, yoked on the pipes, and began to bellows away in high style; when the instant he began, the young fellow, who had been lying as still as a mouse in his cradle, sat up, began to grin and twist his ugly face, to swing about his long tawny arms, and to kick out his crooked legs, and to show signs of great glee at the music. At last nothing would serve him but he should get the pipes into his own hands, and to humour him his mother asked Tim to lend them to the child for a minute. Tim, who was kind to children, readily consented; and as Tim had not his sight, Judy herself brought them to the cradle, and went to put them on him; but she had no occasion, for the youth seemed quite up to the business. He buckled on the pipes, set the bellows under one arm, and the bag under the other, worked them both as knowingly as if he had been twenty years at the business, and lilted up “Sheela na guira” in the finest style imaginable.

All were in astonishment: the poor woman crossed herself. Tim, who, as I said before, was dark, and did not well know who was playing, was in great delight; and when he heard that it was a little prechan not five years old, that had never seen a set of pipes in his life, he wished the mother joy of her son; offered to take him off her hands if she would part with him, swore he was born a piper, a natural _genus_, and declared that in a little time more, with the help of a little good instruction from himself, there would not be his match in the whole county. The poor woman was greatly delighted to hear all this, particularly as what Tim said about natural genus quieted some misgivings that were rising in her mind, lest what the neighbours said about his not being right might be too true; and it gratified her moreover to think that her dear child (for she really loved the whelp) would not be forced to turn out and beg, but might earn decent bread for himself. So when Mick came home in the evening from his work, she up and told him all that had happened, and all that Tim Carrol had said; and Mick, as was natural, was very glad to hear it, for the helpless condition of the poor creature was a great trouble to him. So next day he took the pig to the fair, and with what it brought set off to Clonmel, and bespoke a brand-new set of pipes of the proper size for him.

In about a fortnight the pipes came home, and the moment the chap in his cradle laid eyes on them, he squealed with delight and threw up his legs, and bumped himself in his cradle, and went on with a great many comical tricks; till at last, to quiet him, they gave him the pipes, and he immediately set to and pulled away at “Jig Polthog,” to the admiration of all that heard him.

The fame of his skill on the pipes soon spread far and near, for there was not a piper in the next six counties could come at all near him in “Old Moderagh rue,” or “The Hare in the Corn,” or “The Fox-Hunter’s Jig,” or “The Rakes of Cashel,” or “The Piper’s Maggot,” or any of the fine Irish jigs which make people dance whether they will or no: and it was surprising to hear him rattle away “The Fox Hunt”; you’d really think you heard the hounds giving tongue and the terriers yelping always behind, and the huntsman and the whippers-in cheering or correcting the dogs; it was, in short, the very next thing to seeing the hunt itself.

The best of him was he was noways stingy of his music, and many a merry dance the boys and girls of the neighbourhood used to have in his father’s cabin; and he would play up music for them, that they said used as it were to put quicksilver in their feet; and they all declared they never moved so light and so airy to any piper’s playing that ever they danced to.

But besides all his fine Irish music, he had one queer tune of his own, the oddest that ever was heard; for the moment he began to play it everything in the house seemed disposed to dance; the plates and porringers used to jingle on the dresser, the pots and pot-hooks used to rattle in the chimney, and people used even to fancy they felt the stools moving from under them; but, however it might be with the stools, it is certain that no one could keep long sitting on them, for both old and young always fell to capering as hard as ever they could. The girls complained that when he began this tune it always threw them out in their dancing, and that they never could handle their feet rightly, for they felt the floor like ice under them, and themselves every moment ready to come sprawling on their backs or their faces. The young bachelors that wished to show off their dancing and their new pumps, and their bright red or green and yellow garters, swore that it confused them so that they never could go rightly through the _heel and toe_, or _cover the buckle_, or any of their best steps, but felt themselves always all bedizzied and bewildered, and then old and young would go jostling and knocking together in a frightful manner; and when the unlucky brat had them all in this way, whirligigging about the floor, he’d grin and chuckle and chatter, for all the world like Jacko the monkey when he has played off some of his roguery.

The older he grew the worse he grew, and by the time he was six years old there was no standing the house for him; he was always making his brothers burn or scald themselves, or break their shins over the pots and stools. One time, in harvest, he was left at home by himself, and when his mother came in she found the cat a-horseback on the dog, with her face to the tail, and her legs tied round him, and the urchin playing his queer tune to them; so that the dog went barking and jumping about, and puss was mewing for the dear life, and slapping her tail backwards and forwards, which, as it would hit against the dog’s chaps, he’d snap it and bite, and then there was the philliloo. Another time, the farmer with whom Mick worked, a very decent, respectable man, happened to call in, and Judy wiped a stool with her apron, and invited him to sit down and rest himself after his walk. He was sitting with his back to the cradle, and behind him was a pan of blood, for Judy was making pig’s puddings. The lad lay quite still in his nest, and watched his opportunity till he got ready a hook at the end of a piece of twine, which he contrived to fling so handily that it caught in the bob of the man’s nice new wig, and soused it in the pan of blood. Another time his mother was coming in from milking the cow, with the pail on her head: the minute he saw her he lilted up his infernal tune and the poor woman, letting go the pail, clapped her hands aside and began to dance a jig, and tumbled the milk all atop of her husband, who was bringing in some turf to boil the supper. In short there would be no end to telling all his pranks, and all the mischievous tricks he played.

Soon after, some mischances began to happen to the farmer’s cattle. A horse took the staggers, a fine veal calf died, and some of his sheep; the cows began to grow vicious, and to kick down the milk pails, and the roof of one end of the barn fell in; and the farmer took it into his head that Mick Flanigan’s unlucky child was the cause of all the mischief. So one day he called Mick aside and said to him: “Mick, you see things are not going on with me as they ought, and to be plain with you, Mick, I think that child of yours is the cause of it. I am really falling away to nothing with fretting, and I can hardly sleep on my bed at night for thinking of what may happen before the morning. So I’d be glad if you’d look out for work somewhere else; you’re as good a man as any in the country, and there’s no fear but you’ll have your choice of work.”

To this Mick replied, that he was sorry for his losses, and still sorrier that he and his should be thought to be the cause of them; that for his own part he was not quite easy in his mind about that child, but he had him and so must keep him. And he promised to look out for another place at once.

So Mick gave out that he was about to leave his work at John Riordan’s, and immediately a farmer who lived a couple of miles off, and who wanted a ploughman (the last one having just left him), came up to Mick, and offered him a house and garden, and work all the year round. Mick, who knew him to be a good employer, immediately closed with him; so it was agreed the farmer should send a car to take his little bit of furniture, and that he should remove on the following Thursday.

When Thursday came, the car came according to promise, and Mick loaded it, and put the cradle with the child and his pipes on the top, and Judy sat beside it to take care of him, lest he should tumble out. They drove the cow before them, the dog followed, but the cat was of course left behind; and the other three children went along the road picking skee-hories (haws) and blackberries, for it was a fine day towards the latter end of harvest.

They had to cross a river, but as it ran through a bottom between two high banks, you did not see it till you were close on it. The young fellow was lying pretty quiet in the bottom of the cradle, till they came to the head of the bridge, when hearing the roaring of the water (for there was a great flood in the river, as it had rained heavily for the last two or three days), he sat up in his cradle and looked about him; and the instant he got a sight of the water and found they were going to take him across it, oh! how he did bellow and how he did squeal!--no rat caught in a snap-trap ever sang out equal to him.

“Whisht! a lanna,” said Judy, “there’s no fear of you; sure it’s only over the stone bridge we’re going.”

“Bad luck to you, you old rip!” cried he, “what a pretty trick you’ve played me, to bring me here!” And still he went on yelling, and the further they got on the bridge the louder he yelled, till at last Mick could hold out no longer, so giving him a skelp with the whip he had in his hand, “You brat!” he said, “will you never stop bawling? A body can’t hear their ears for you.”

The moment he felt the thong of the whip, he leaped up in the cradle, clapped the pipes under his arm, gave a most wicked grin at Mick, and jumped clean off the cart over the side of the bridge down into the water.

“O my child, my child!” shouted Judy, “he’s gone for ever from me.”

Mick and the rest of the children ran to the other side of the bridge, and looking over, they saw him coming out from under the arch of the bridge, sitting cross-legged on the top of a white-headed wave, and playing away on the pipes as merrily as if nothing had happened. The river was running very rapidly, so he was whirled away at a great rate; but he played as fast, ay and faster, than the river ran; and though they set off as hard as they could along the bank, yet, as the river made a sudden turn round the hill, about a hundred yards below the bridge, by the time they got there he was out of sight, and no one ever laid eyes on him more; but the general opinion was that he went home with the pipes to his own relations, the good people, to make music for them.

* * * * *

“They must have been well-rid of such an uncomfortable child,” said King Oberon, though it was noticed that he and most of the fairies were laughing to think of the astonishment which must have been shown by Mick and Judy when the young piper went plump over into the river off the cart-load of furniture.

They were still laughing when a voice exclaimed,

“Mine is a short story with a long name.”

At once the laughter stopped and all turned to the stool on which a quaint Gnome was sitting with one leg over the knee of the other and with his hands clasping his foot was rocking backwards and forwards until he saw that everybody’s attention was directed to him, when he went on to say:

“Sometimes when fairy-folk who are not so good as they might be, try to do harm to people by pretending to do them good, they are not so successful, as you will learn from my tale of

Rumpel-Stilts-Ken

By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller’s house was close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now this king was very fond of money; and when he heard the miller’s boast his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, “All this must be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.” It was in vain that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber door was locked, and she was left alone.

She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man hobbled in, and said, “Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you weeping for?” “Alas!” said she, “I must spin this straw into gold, and I know not how.” “What will you give me,” said the hobgoblin, “to do it for you?” “My necklace,” replied the maiden. He took her at her word, and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang--

“Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!”

And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and the straw was all spun into gold.

When the king came in and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased; but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor miller’s daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and said, “What will you give me to do your task?” “The ring on my finger,” said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the wheel again, and whistled and sang--

“Round about, round about,
Lo and behold!
Reel away, reel away,
Straw into gold!”

till, long before morning, all was done again.

The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; but still he had not enough: so he took the miller’s daughter to a yet larger heap, and said, “All this must be spun to-night; and if it is, you shall be my queen.” As soon as she was alone the dwarf came in, and said, “What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?” “I have nothing left,” said she. “Then say you will give me,” said the little man, “the first little child that you may have when you are queen.” “That may never be,” thought the miller’s daughter: and as she knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller’s daughter, and she really became queen.

At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at last her tears softened him, and he said, “I will give you three days’ grace, and, if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your child.”

Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with +TIMOTHY+, +ICHABOD+, +BENJAMIN+, +JEREMIAH+, and all the names she could remember; but to all and each of them he said, “Madam, that is not my name.”

The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, +BANDY-LEGS+, +HUNCH-BACK+, +CROOK-SHANKS+, and so on; but the little gentleman still said to every one of them, “Madam, that is not my name.”

The third day one of the messengers came back and said, “I travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox and the hare bid each other good-night, I saw a little hut; and before the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was dancing upon one leg, and singing--

“‘Merrily the feast I’ll make,
To-day I’ll brew, to-morrow bake;
Merrily I’ll dance and sing,
For next day will a stranger bring.
Little does my lady dream
Rumpel-stilts-ken is my name!’”

When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round to enjoy the fun; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began to chuckle at the thoughts of having the poor child to take home with him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, “Now, lady, what is my name?” “Is it +JOHN+?” asked she. “No, madam!” “Is it +TOM+?” “No, madam!” “Is it +JEMMY+?” “It is not!” “Can your name be +RUMPEL-STILTS-KEN+?” said the lady slily. “Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!” cried the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it out.

Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much trouble for nothing, and said, “We wish you a very good morning, and a merry feast, Mr +RUMPEL-STILTS-KEN+!”

* * * * *

“Too short, too short,” said King Oberon.

“Your Majesty,” protested the Gnome in a dignified manner, “a story should not be measured by the number of words which it contains, nor should twenty minutes be spent over a tale which can be told in ten.”

“True,” replied Oberon good-humouredly, “but as you can tell us so much in so little time perhaps you can tell us another.”

“With pleasure,” said the flattered Gnome, and at once, merely pausing while he reversed the position of his legs so that he nursed the left one instead of the right, he began the story of

Karl Katz

In the midst of the Hartz forests there is a high mountain, of which the neighbours tell all sorts of stories: how the goblins and fairies dance on it by night; and how the old Emperor Red-beard holds his court there, and sits on his marble throne, with his long beard sweeping on the ground.

A great many years ago there lived in a village at the foot of this mountain, one Karl Katz. Now Karl was a goatherd, and every morning he drove his flock to feed upon the green spots that are here and there found on the mountain’s side. In the evening he sometimes thought it too late to drive his charge home; so he used in such cases to shut it up in a spot amongst the woods, where the old ruined walls of some castle that had long ago been deserted were left standing, and were high enough to form a fold, in which he could count his goats, and let them rest for the night. One evening he found that the prettiest goat of his flock had vanished, soon after they were driven into this fold. He searched everywhere for it in vain; but, to his surprise and delight, when he counted his flock in the morning, what should he see, the first of the flock, but his lost goat! Again and again the same strange thing happened. At last he thought he would watch still more narrowly; and, having looked carefully over the old walls, he found a narrow doorway, through which it seemed that his favourite made her way. Karl followed, and found a path leading downwards through a cleft in the rocks. On he went, scrambling as well as he could, down the side of the rock, and at last came to the mouth of a cave, where he lost sight of his goat. Just then he saw that his faithful dog was not with him. He whistled, but no dog was there; and he was therefore forced to go into the cave and try to find his goat by himself.

He groped his way for a while, and at last came to a place where a little light found its way in; and there he wondered not a little to find his goat, employing itself very much at its ease in the cavern, in eating corn, which kept dropping from some place over its head. He went up and looked about him, to see where all this corn, that rattled about his ears like a hail-storm, could come from: but all overhead was dark, and he could find no clue to this strange business.

At last, as he stood listening, he thought he heard the neighing and stamping of horses. He listened again; it was plainly so; and after a while he was sure that horses were feeding above him, and that the corn fell from their mangers. What could these horses be which were thus kept in the clefts of rocks, where none but the goat’s foot ever trod? There must be people of some sort or other living here; and who could they be? and was it safe to trust himself in such company? Karl pondered awhile; but his wonder only grew greater and greater, when on a sudden he heard his own name, “Karl Katz!” echo through the cavern. He turned round, but could see nothing. “Karl Katz!” again sounded sharply in his ears; and soon out came a little dwarfish page, with a high-peaked hat and a scarlet cloak, from a dark corner at one end of the cave.

The dwarf nodded, and beckoned him to follow. Karl thought he should first like to know a little about who it was that thus sought his company. He asked: but the dwarf shook his head, answering not a word, and again beckoned him to follow. He did so; and winding his way through ruins, he soon heard rolling overhead what sounded like peals of thunder, echoing among the rocks: the noise grew louder and louder as he went on, and at last he came to a courtyard surrounded by old ivy-grown walls. The spot seemed to be the bosom of a little valley; above rose on every hand high masses of rock; wide-branching trees threw their arms overhead, so that nothing but a glimmering twilight made its way through; and here, on the cool smooth-shaven turf, Karl saw twelve strange old figures amusing themselves very sedately with a game of nine-pins.

Their dress did not seem altogether strange to Karl, for in the church of the town whither he went every week to market there was an old monument, with figures of queer old knights upon it, dressed in the very same fashion. Not a word fell from any of their lips. They moved about soberly and gravely, each taking his turn at the game; but the oldest of them ordered Karl Katz, by dumb signs, to busy himself in setting up the pins as they knocked them down. At first his knees trembled, as he hardly dared snatch a stolen sidelong glance at the long beards and old-fashioned dresses of the worthy knights; but he soon saw that as each knight played out his game he went to his seat, and there took a hearty draught at a flagon, which the dwarf kept filled, and which sent up the smell of the richest old wine.

Little by little Karl got bolder; and at last he plucked up his heart so far as to beg the dwarf, by signs, to let him too take his turn at the flagon. The dwarf gave it him with a grave bow, and Karl thought he never tasted anything half so good before. This gave him new strength for his work; and as often as he flagged at all he turned to the same kind friend for help in his need.

Which was tired first, he or the knights, Karl never could tell; or whether the wine got the better of his head: but what he knew was, that sleep at last overpowered him, and that when he awoke he found himself stretched out upon the old spot within the walls where he had folded his flock, and saw that the bright sun was high up in the heavens. The same green turf was spread beneath, and the same tottering ivy-clad walls surrounded him. He rubbed his eyes and called his dog; but neither dog nor goat was to be seen; and when he looked about him again, the grass seemed to be longer under his feet than it was yesterday; and trees hung over his head which he had either never seen before, or had quite forgotten. Shaking his head, and hardly knowing whether he was in his right mind, he got up and stretched himself: somehow or other his joints felt stiffer than they were. “It serves me right,” said he; “this comes of sleeping out of one’s own bed.” Little by little he recollected his evening’s sport, and licked his lips as he thought of the charming wine he had taken so much of. “But who,” thought he, “can those people be, that come to this odd place to play at nine-pins?”

His first step was to look for the doorway through which he had followed his goat; but to his astonishment, not the least trace of an opening of any sort was to be seen. There stood the wall, without chink or crack big enough for a rat to pass through. Again he paused and scratched his head. His hat was full of holes: “Why, it was new last Shrove-tide!” said he. By chance his eye fell next on his shoes, which were almost new when he last left home; but now they looked so old, that they were likely to fall to pieces before he could get home. All his clothes seemed in the same sad plight. The more he looked, the more he pondered, the more he was at a loss to know what could have happened to him.

At length he turned round, and left the old walls to look for his flock. Slow and out of heart he wound his way among the mountain steeps, through paths where his flocks were wont to wander: still not a goat was to be seen. Again he whistled and called his dog, but no dog came. Below him in the plain lay the village where his home was; so at length he took the downward path, and set out with a heavy heart and a faltering step in search of his flock.

“Surely,” said he, “I shall soon meet some neighbour, who can tell me where my goats are?” But the people who met him, as he drew near to the village, were all unknown to him. They were not even dressed as his neighbours were, and they seemed as if they hardly spoke the same tongue. When he eagerly asked each, as he came up, after his goats, they only stared at him and stroked their chins. At last he did the same too; and what was his wonder to find that his beard was grown at least a foot long! “The world,” said he to himself, “is surely turned upside down, or if not, I must be bewitched”: and yet he knew the mountain, as he turned round again, and looked back on its woody heights; and he knew the houses and cottages also, with their little gardens, as he entered the village. All were in the places he had always known them in; and he heard some children, too (as a traveller that passed by was asking his way), call the village by the very same name he had always known it to bear.

Again he shook his head, and went straight through the village to his own cottage. Alas! it looked sadly out of repair; the windows were broken, the door off its hinges, and in the courtyard lay an unknown child, in a ragged dress, playing with a rough, toothless old dog, whom he thought he ought to know, but who snarled and barked in his face when he called to him. He went in at the open doorway; but he found all so dreary and empty, that he staggered out again like a drunken man, and called his wife and children loudly by their names: but no one heard, at least no one answered him.

A crowd of women and children soon flocked around the strange-looking man with the long grey beard; and all broke upon him at once with the questions, “Who are you?” “Who is it that you want?” It seemed to him so odd to ask other people, at his own door, after his wife and children, that, in order to get rid of the crowd, he named the first man that came into his head. “Hans the blacksmith?” said he. Most held their tongues and stared; but at last an old woman said, “He went these seven years ago to a place that you will not reach to-day.” “Fritz the tailor, then?” “Heaven rest his soul!” said an old beldam upon crutches; “he has lain these ten years in a house that he’ll never leave.”

Karl Katz looked at the old woman again, and shuddered, as he knew her to be one of his old gossips; but saw she had a strangely altered face. All wish to ask further questions was gone; but at last a young woman made her way through the gaping throng, with a baby in her arms, and a little girl of about three years old clinging to her other hand. All three looked the very image of his own wife. “What is thy name?” asked he, wildly. “Liese!” said she. “And your father’s?” “Karl Katz! Heaven bless him!” said she: “but, poor man! he is lost and gone. It is now full twenty years since we sought for him day and night on the mountain. His dog and his flock came back, but he never was heard of any more. I was then seven years old.”

Poor Karl could hold no longer: “I am Karl Katz, and no other!” said he, as he took the child from his daughter’s arms and kissed it over and over again.

All stood gaping, and hardly knowing what to say or think, when old Stropken the schoolmaster hobbled by, and took a long and close look at him. “Karl Katz! Karl Katz!” said he slowly: “why, it _is_ Karl Katz, sure enough! There is my own mark upon him; there is the scar over his right eye, that I gave him myself one day with my oak stick.” Then several others also cried out, “Yes it is! it is Karl Katz! Welcome, neighbour, welcome home!” “But where,” said or thought all, “can an honest steady fellow like you have been these twenty years?”

And now the whole village had flocked around; the children laughed, the dogs barked, and all were glad to see neighbour Karl home alive and well. As to where he had been for the twenty years, that was a part of the story at which Karl shrugged up his shoulders; for he never could very well explain it, and seemed to think the less that was said about it the better. But it was plain enough that what dwelt most on his memory was the noble wine that had tickled his mouth while the knights played their game of nine-pins.

* * * * *

No sooner had the Gnome concluded his story than a funny looking fairy with feathers in his hair and hanging in a stream all down his back--just like a Red Indian in all his war-paint--exclaimed,

“Karl Katz, indeed, the people where I come from call him Rip Van Winkle and he really--”

“Stop, my little friend,” said the king, “when we want your very entertaining story we will ask you for it, no doubt there are more folk than Karl Katz and your friend Rip Van Winkle who have lived long with the fairies and gone back after years to their own people.”

“History repeats itself,” said the Gnome sententiously.

“Yes,” added Oberon, “and you have repeated enough, so now we will have a story from someone else.”

The fairies all laughed at the king’s little sally, and settled themselves down to hear the next tale, which was given by the Fairy Peaseblossom, one of the attendants upon Queen Titania who, knowing her Majesty’s favourite story, told them of

The Wild Swans

Far away, where the swallows take refuge in winter, lived a king who had eleven sons and one daughter, Elise. The eleven brothers--they were all princes--used to go to school with stars on their breasts and swords at their sides. They wrote upon golden slates with diamond pencils, and could read just as well without a book as with one, so there was no mistake about their being real princes. Their sister Elise sat upon a little footstool of looking-glass, and she had a picture-book which had cost the half of a kingdom. Oh, these children were very happy; but it was not to last thus for ever.

Their father, who was king over all the land, married a wicked queen who was not at all kind to the poor children; they found that out on the first day. All was festive at the castle, but when the children wanted to play at having company, instead of having as many cakes and baked apples as ever they wanted, she would only let them have some sand in a tea-cup, and said they must make-believe.

In the following week she sent little Elise into the country to board with some peasants, and it did not take her long to make the king believe so many bad things about the boys, that he cared no longer for them.

“Fly out into the world and look after yourselves,” said the wicked queen; “you shall fly about like birds without voices.”

But she could not make things as bad for them as she would have liked; they turned into eleven beautiful wild swans. They flew out of the palace window with a weird scream, right across the park and the woods.

It was very early in the morning when they came to the place where their sister Elise was sleeping in the peasant’s house. They hovered over the roof of the house, turning and twisting their long necks, and flapping their wings; but no one either heard or saw them. They had to fly away again, and they soared up towards the clouds, far out into the wide world, and they settled in a big, dark wood, which stretched right down to the shore.

Poor little Elise stood in the peasant’s room, playing with a green leaf, for she had no other toys. She made a little hole in it, which she looked through at the sun, and it seemed to her as if she saw her brothers’ bright eyes. Every time the warm sunbeams shone upon her cheek, it reminded her of their kisses. One day passed just like another. When the wind whistled through the rose-hedges outside the house, it whispered to the roses, “Who can be prettier than you are?” But the roses shook their heads and answered, “Elise!” And when the old woman sat in the doorway reading her Psalms, the wind turned over the leaves and said to the book, “Who can be more pious than you?” “Elise!” answered the book. Both the roses and the book of Psalms only spoke the truth.

She was to go home when she was fifteen, but when the queen saw how pretty she was she got very angry, and her heart was filled with hatred. She would willingly have turned her into a wild swan too, like her brothers, but she did not dare to do it at once, for the king wanted to see his daughter. The queen always went to the bath in the early morning. It was built of marble and adorned with soft cushions and beautiful carpets.

She took three toads, kissed them, and said to the first, “Sit upon Elise’s head when she comes to the bath, so that she may become sluggish like yourself.” “Sit upon her forehead,” she said to the second, “that she may become ugly like you, and then her father won’t know her! Rest upon her heart,” she whispered to the third. “Let an evil spirit come over her, which may be a burden to her.” Then she put the toads into the clean water, and a green tinge immediately came over it. She called Elise, undressed her, and made her go into the bath; when she ducked under the water, one of the toads got among her hair, the other got on to her forehead, and the third on to her bosom. But when she stood up three scarlet poppies floated on the water; had not the creatures been poisonous, and kissed by the sorceress, they would have been changed into crimson roses, but yet they became flowers from merely having rested a moment on her head and her heart. She was far too good and innocent for the sorcery to have any power over her. When the wicked Queen saw this, she rubbed her over with walnut juice, and smeared her face with some evil-smelling salve. She also matted up her beautiful hair; it would have been impossible to recognise pretty Elise. When her father saw her, he was quite horrified and said that she could not be his daughter. Nobody would have anything to say to her, except the yard dog, and the swallows, and they were only poor dumb animals whose opinion went for nothing.

Poor Elise wept, and thought of her eleven brothers who were all lost. She crept sadly out of the palace and wandered about all day, over meadows and marshes, and into a big forest. She did not know in the least where she wanted to go, but she felt very sad, and longed for her brothers, who, no doubt, like herself had been driven out of the palace. She made up her mind to go and look for them, but she had only been in the wood for a short time when night fell. She had quite lost her way, so she lay down upon the soft moss, said her evening prayer, and rested her head on a little hillock. It was very still and the air was mild, hundreds of glow-worms shone around her on the grass and in the marsh like green fire. When she gently moved one of the branches over her head, the little shining insects fell over her like a shower of stars. She dreamt about her brothers all night long. Again they were children playing together: they wrote upon the golden slates with their diamond pencils, and she looked at the picture-book which had cost half a kingdom. But they no longer wrote strokes and noughts upon their slates as they used to do; no, they wrote down all their boldest exploits, and everything that they had seen and experienced. Everything in the picture-book was alive, the birds sang, and the people walked out of the book, and spoke to Elise and her brothers. When she turned over a page, they skipped back into their places again, so that there should be no confusion among the pictures.

When she woke the sun was already high; it is true she could not see it very well through the thick branches of the lofty forest trees, but the sunbeams cast a golden shimmer around beyond the forest. There was a fresh delicious scent of grass and herbs in the air, and the birds were almost ready to perch upon her shoulders. She could hear the splashing of water, for there were many springs around, which all flowed into a pond with a lovely sandy bottom. It was surrounded with thick bushes, but there was one place which the stags had trampled down and Elise passed through the opening to the water side. It was so transparent, that had not the branches been moved by the breeze, she must have thought that they were painted on the bottom, so plainly was every leaf reflected, both those on which the sun played, and those which were in shade.