Andrew Lang_Fairy Book 09 (28 page)

At length, when he was getting quite old, he came to a place
unlike any that he had ever seen before, where a big river rolled
right to the foot of some high mountains. The ground all about
the river bank was damp and marshy, and as no cat likes to wet
its feet, this one climbed a tree that rose high above the water,
and thought sadly of his lost ball, which would have helped him
out of this horrible place. Suddenly he saw a beautiful ball,
for all the world like his own, dangling from a branch of the
tree he was on. He longed to get at it; but was the branch
strong enough to bear his weight? It was no use, after all he
had done, getting drowned in the water. However, it could do no
harm, if he was to go a little way; he could always manage to get
back somehow.

So he stretched himself at full length upon the branch, and
wriggled his body cautiously along. To his delight it seemed
thick and stout. Another movement, and, by stretching out his
paw, he would be able to draw the string towards him, when the
branch gave a loud crack, and the cat made haste to wriggle
himself back the way he had come.

But when cats make up their minds to do anything they generally
DO it; and this cat began to look about to see if there was
really no way of getting at his ball. Yes! there was, and it was
much surer than the other, though rather more difficult. Above
the bough where the ball was hung was another bough much thicker,
which he knew could not break with his weight; and by holding on
tight to this with all his four paws, he could just manage to
touch the ball with his tail. He would thus be able to whisk the
ball to and fro till, by-and-by, the string would become quite
loose, and it would fall to the ground. It might take some time,
but the lion's little brother was patient, like most cats.

Well, it all happened just as the cat intended it should, and
when the ball dropped on the ground the cat ran down the tree
like lightning, and, picking it up, tucked it away in the snake's
skin round his neck. Then he began jumping along the shore of
the Big Water from one place to another, trying to find a boat,
or even a log of wood, that would take him across. But there was
nothing; only, on the other side, he saw two girls cooking, and
though he shouted to them at the top of his voice, they were too
far off to hear what he said. And, what was worse, the ball
suddenly fell out of its snake's skin bag right into the river.

Now, it is not at all an uncommon thing for balls to tumble into
rivers, but in that case they generally either fall to the bottom
and stay there, or else bob about on the top of the water close
to where they first touched it. But this ball, instead of doing
either of these things, went straight across to the other side,
and there one of the girls saw it when she stooped to dip some
water into her pail.

'Oh! what a lovely ball!' cried she, and tried to catch it in her
pail; but the ball always kept bobbing just out of her reach.

'Come and help me!' she called to her sister, and after a long
while they had the ball safe inside the pail. They were
delighted with their new toy, and one or the other held it in her
hand till bedtime came, and then it was a long time before they
could make up their minds where it would be safest for the night.
At last they locked it in a cupboard in one corner of their room,
and as there was no hole anywhere the ball could not possibly get
out. After that they went to sleep.

In the morning the first thing they both did was to run to the
cupboard and unlock it, but when the door opened they started
back, for, instead of the ball, there stood a handsome young man.

'Ladies,' he said, 'how can I thank you for what you have done
for me? Long, long ago, I was enchanted by a wicked fairy, and
condemned to keep the shape of a ball till I should meet with two
maidens, who would take me to their own home. But where was I to
meet them? For hundreds of years I have lived in the depths of
the forest, where nothing but wild beasts ever came, and it was
only when the lion threw me into the sky that I was able to fall
to earth near this river. Where there is a river, sooner or
later people will come; so, hanging myself on a tree, I watched
and waited. For a moment I lost heart when I fell once more into
the hands of my old master the wild cat, but my hopes rose again
as I saw he was making for the river bank opposite where you were
standing. That was my chance, and I took it. And now, ladies, I
have only to say that, if ever I can do anything to help you, go
to the top of that high mountain and knock three times at the
iron door at the north side, and I will come to you.'

So, with a low bow, he vanished from before them, leaving the
maidens weeping at having lost in one moment both the ball and
the prince.

(Adapted from North American Indian Legends.)

In a little village that stood on a wide plain, where you could
see the sun from the moment he rose to the moment he set, there
lived two couples side by side. The men, who worked under the
same master, were quite good friends, but the wives were always
quarrelling, and the subject they quarrelled most about was—
which of the two had the stupidest husband.

Unlike most women—who think that anything that belongs to them
must be better than what belongs to anyone else—each thought her
husband the more foolish of the two.

'You should just see what he does!' one said to her neighbour.
'He puts on the baby's frock upside down, and, one day, I found
him trying to feed her with boiling soup, and her mouth was
scalded for days after. Then he picks up stones in the road and
sows them instead of potatoes, and one day he wanted to go into
the garden from the top window, because he declared it was a
shorter way than through the door.'

'That is bad enough, of course,' answered the other; 'but it is
really NOTHING to what I have to endure every day from MY
husband. If, when I am busy, I ask him to go and feed the
poultry, he is certain to give them some poisonous stuff instead
of their proper food, and when I visit the yard next I find them
all dead. Once he even took my best bonnet, when I had gone away
to my sick mother, and when I came back I found he had given it
to the hen to lay her eggs in. And you know yourself that, only
last week, when I sent him to buy a cask of butter, he returned
driving a hundred and fifty ducks which someone had induced him
to take, and not one of them would lay.'

'Yes, I am afraid he IS trying,' replied the first; 'but let us
put them to the proof, and see which of them is the most
foolish.'

So, about the time that she expected her husband home from work,
she got out her spinning-wheel, and sat busily turning it, taking
care not even to look up from her work when the man came in. For
some minutes he stood with his mouth open watching her, and as
she still remained silent, he said at last:

'Have you gone mad, wife, that you sit spinning without anything
on the wheel?'

'YOU may think that there is nothing on it,' answered she, 'but I
can assure you that there is a large skein of wool, so fine that
nobody can see it, which will be woven into a coat for you.'

'Dear me!' he replied, 'what a clever wife I have got! If you had
not told me I should never have known that there was any wool on
the wheel at all. But now I really do seem to see something.'

The woman smiled and was silent, and after spinning busily for an
hour more, she got up from her stoop, and began to weave as fast
as she could. At last she got up, and said to her husband: 'I am
too tired to finish it to-night, so I shall go to bed, and to-
morrow I shall only have the cutting and stitching to do.'

So the next morning she got up early, and after she had cleaned
her house, and fed her chickens, and put everything in its place
again, she bent over the kitchen table, and the sound of her big
scissors might be heard snip! snap! as far as the garden. Her
husband could not see anything to snip at; but then he was so
stupid that was not surprising!

After the cutting came the sewing. The woman patted and pinned
and fixed and joined, and then, turning to the man, she said:

'Now it is ready for you to try on.' And she made him take off
his coat, and stand up in front of her, and once more she patted
an pinned and fixed and joined, and was very careful in smoothing
out every wrinkle.

'It does not feel very warm,' observed the man at last, when he
had borne all this patiently for a long time.

'That is because it is so fine,' answered she; 'you do not want
it to be as thick as the rough clothes you wear every day.'

He DID, but was ashamed to say so, and only answered: 'Well, I am
sure it must be beautiful since you say so, and I shall be
smarter than anyone in the whole village. "What a splendid
coat!" they will exclaim when they see me. But it is not
everybody who has a wife as clever as mine.'

Meanwhile the other wife was not idle. As soon as her husband
entered she looked at him with such a look of terror that the
poor man was quite frightened.

'Why do you stare at me so? Is there anything the matter?' asked
he.

'Oh! go to bed at once,' she cried; 'you must be very ill indeed
to look like that!'

The man was rather surprised at first, as he felt particularly
well that evening; but the moment his wife spoke he became quite
certain that he had something dreadful the matter with him, and
grew quite pale.

'I dare say it would be the best place for me,' he answered,
trembling; and he suffered his wife to take him upstairs, and to
help him off with his clothes.

'If you sleep well during the might there MAY be a chance for
you,' said she, shaking her head, as she tucked him up warmly;
'but if not—' And of course the poor man never closed an eye
till the sun rose.

'How do you feel this morning?' asked the woman, coming in on
tip-toe when her house-work was finished.

'Oh, bad; very bad indeed,' answered he; 'I have not slept for a
moment. Can you think of nothing to make me better?'

'I will try everything that is possible,' said the wife, who did
not in the least wish her husband to die, but was determined to
show that he was more foolish that the other man. 'I will get
some dried herbs and make you a drink, but I am very much afraid
that it is too late. Why did you not tell me before?'

'I thought perhaps the pain would go off in a day or two; and,
besides, I did not want to make you unhappy,' answered the man,
who was by this time quite sure he had been suffering tortures,
and had borne them like a hero. 'Of course, if I had had any
idea how ill I really was, I should have spoken at once.'

'Well, well, I will see what can be done,' said the wife, 'but
talking is not good for you. Lie still, and keep yourself warm.'

All that day the man lay in bed, and whenever his wife entered
the room and asked him, with a shake of the head, how he felt, he
always replied that he was getting worse. At last, in the
evening, she burst into tears, and when he inquired what was the
matter, she sobbed out:

'Oh, my poor, poor husband, are you really dead? I must go to-
morrow and order your coffin.'

Now, when the man heard this, a cold shiver ran through his body,
and all at once he knew that he was as well as he had ever been
in his life.

'Oh, no, no!' he cried, 'I feel quite recovered! Indeed, I think
I shall go out to work.'

'You will do no such thing,' replied his wife. 'Just keep quite
quiet, for before the sun rises you will be a dead man.'

The man was very frightened at her words, and lay absolutely
still while the undertaker came and measured him for his coffin;
and his wife gave orders to the gravedigger about his grave.
That evening the coffin was sent home, and in the morning at nine
o'clock the woman put him on a long flannel garment, and called
to the undertaker's men to fasten down the lid and carry him to
the grave, where all their friends were waiting them. Just as
the body was being placed in the ground the other woman's husband
came running up, dressed, as far as anyone could see, in no
clothes at all. Everybody burst into shouts of laughter at the
sight of him, and the men laid down the coffin and laughed too,
till their sides nearly split. The dead man was so astonished at
this behaviour, that he peeped out of a little window in the side
of the coffin, and cried out:

'I should laugh as loudly as any of you, if I were not a dead
man.'

When they heard the voice coming from the coffin the other people
suddenly stopped laughing, and stood as if they had been turned
into stone. Then they rushed with one accord to the coffin, and
lifted the lid so that the man could step out amongst them.

'Were you really not dead after all?' asked they. 'And if not,
why did you let yourself be buried?'

At this the wives both confessed that they had each wished to
prove that her husband was stupider than the other. But the
villagers declared that they could not decide which was the most
foolish— the man who allowed himself to be persuaded that he was
wearing fine clothes when he was dressed in nothing, or the man
who let himself be buried when he was alive and well.

So the women quarrelled just as much as they did before, and no
one ever knew whose husband was the most foolish.

(Adapted from the Neuislandische Volksmarchen.)

Long, long ago, in the days when fairies, witches, giants and
ogres still visited the earth, there lived a king who reigned
over a great and beautiful country. He was married to a wife
whom he dearly loved, and had two most promising children—a son
called Asmund, and a daughter who was named Signy.