Various
Favorite Fairy Tales: The Childhood Choice of Representative Men and Women
SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED
A POOR widow lived alone in a little cottage, in front of which was a garden, where stood two little rose-trees: one bore white roses, the other red. The widow had two children who resembled the two rose-trees: one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose-red. They were two of the best children that ever lived; but Snow-white was quieter and more gentle than Rose-red. Rose-red liked best to jump about in the meadows, to look for flowers and catch butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home with her mother, helped her in the house, or read to her when there was nothing else to do. The two children loved one another so much that they always walked hand in hand; and when Snow-white said, “We will not forsake one another,” Rose-red answered, “Never, as long as we live;” and the mother added, “Yes, my children, whatever one has, let her divide with the other.” They often ran about in solitary places, and gathered red berries; and the wild creatures of the wood never hurt them, but came confidingly up to them. The little hare ate cabbage-leaves out of their hands, the doe grazed at their side, the stag sprang merrily past them, and the birds remained sitting on the boughs, and never ceased their songs. They met with no accident if they loitered in the wood and night came on; they lay down together on the moss, and slept till morning; and the mother knew this, and was in no anxiety about them. Once, when they had spent the night in the wood, and the red morning awoke them, they saw a beautiful child, in a shining white dress, sitting by the place where they had slept, who, arising, and looking at them kindly, said nothing, but went into the wood. And when they looked round they found out that they had been sleeping close to a precipice, and would certainly have fallen down it if they had gone a few steps farther in the dark. Their mother told them it must have been the angel that takes care of good children who had sat by them all night long.
Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother’s cottage so clean that it was a pleasure to look into it. In the summer Rose-red managed the house, and every morning she gathered a nosegay in which was a rose off each tree, and set it by her mother’s bed before she awoke. In winter Snow-white lighted the fire, and hung the kettle on the hook; and though it was only copper it shone like gold, it was rubbed so clean. In the evening, when the snow fell, the mother said, “Go, Snow-white, and bolt the door;” and then they seated themselves on the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles, and read aloud out of a great book, and the two girls listened, and sat and span. Near them lay a lamb on the floor, and behind them, on a perch, sat a white dove, with its head under its wing.
One evening, as they were thus happy together, some one knocked to be let in. The mother said, “Quick, Rose-red, open the door; perhaps it is a traveller who seeks shelter.” Rose-red went and pushed the bolt back, and thought it was a poor man; but a bear stretched his thick black head into the door. Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the little lamb bleated, the little dove fluttered about, and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother’s bed. However, the bear began to speak, and said, “Do not be frightened, I will do you no harm; I am half frozen, and only want to warm myself a little.”
“You poor bear,” said the mother, “lay yourself down before the fire, only take care your fur does not burn.” Then she called out: “Snow-white and Rose-red, come out; the bear will not hurt you – he means honestly by us.” Then they both came out, and, by degrees, the lamb and the dove also approached, and ceased to be afraid. The bear said, “Children, knock the snow a little out of my fur;” and they fetched a broom, and swept the bear’s skin clean; and he stretched himself before the fire and growled softly, like a bear that was quite happy and comfortable. In a short time they all became quite friendly together, and the children played tricks with the awkward guest. They pulled his hair, set their feet on his back, and rolled him here and there; or took a hazel rod and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. The bear was very much pleased with this frolic, only, when they became too mischievous, he called out: “Children, leave me alone.
“Little Snow-white and Rose-red,
You will strike your lover dead.”
When bedtime came, and the others went to sleep, the mother said to the bear: “You can lie there on the hearth, and then you will be sheltered from the cold and the bad weather.” At daybreak the two children let him out, and he trotted over the snow into the wood. Henceforward the bear came every evening at the same hour, laid himself on the hearth, and allowed the children to play with him as much as they liked; and they became so used to him that the door was never bolted until their black companion had arrived. When spring came, and everything was green out-of-doors, the bear said one morning to Snow-white: “Now I must go away, and may not come again the whole summer.”
“Where are you going, dear Bear?” asked Snow-white.
“I must go into the wood, and guard my treasures from the bad dwarfs; in winter, when the ground is frozen hard, they have to stay underneath, and cannot work their way through, but now that the sun has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through, come up, seek, and steal; what is once in their hands, and lies in their caverns, does not come so easily into daylight again.” Snow-white was quite sorrowful at parting, and as she unbolted the door for him, and the bear ran out, the hook of the door caught him, and a piece of his skin tore off; it seemed to Snow-white as if she had seen gold shining through, but she was not sure. But the bear ran quickly away, and soon disappeared behind the trees.
After some time, their mother sent the children into the wood to collect fagots. They found there a large tree, which had been cut down and lay on the ground, and by the trunk something was jumping up and down, but they could not tell what it was. As they came nearer they saw that it was a dwarf with an old withered face, and a snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was stuck fast in a cleft in the tree, and the little fellow jumped about like a dog on a rope, and did not know how to help himself. He stared at the girls with his fiery red eyes, and screamed out: “Why do you stand there? Can’t you come and render me some assistance?”
“What is the matter with you, little man?” asked Rose-red.
“Stupid little goose!” answered the dwarf; “I wanted to chop the tree, so as to have some small pieces of wood for the kitchen; we only want little bits; with thick logs the small quantity of food that we cook for ourselves – we are not, like you, great greedy people – burns directly. I had driven the wedge well in, and it was all going on right, but the detestable wood was too smooth, and sprang out unexpectedly; and the tree closed up so quickly that I could not pull my beautiful white beard out; now it is sticking there, and I can’t get away. There, you foolish, soft, milk-faces, you are laughing and crying out: ‘How ugly you are! how ugly you are!’”
The children took a great deal of trouble, but they could not pull the beard out; it stuck too fast.
“I will run and fetch somebody,” said Rose-red.
“You great ninny!” snarled the dwarf, “to want to call more people; you are too many for me now. Can’t you think of anything better?”
“Only don’t be impatient,” said Snow-white. “I have thought of something;” and she took her little scissors out of her pocket, and cut the end of the beard off.
As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he seized a sack filled with gold that was sticking between the roots of the tree; pulling it out, he growled to himself: “You rude people, to cut off a piece of my beautiful beard! May evil reward you!” Then he threw his sack over his shoulders, and walked away without once looking at the children.
Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red wished to catch some fish for dinner. As they came near to the stream they saw that something like a grasshopper was jumping towards the water, as if it were going to spring in. They ran on and recognized the dwarf.
“Where are you going?” asked Rose-red. “You don’t want to go into the water?”
“I am not such a fool as that,” cried the dwarf. “Don’t you see the detestable fish wants to pull me in?”
The little fellow had been sitting there fishing, and, unluckily, the wind had entangled his beard with the line. When directly afterwards a great fish bit at his hook the weak creature could not pull him out, so the fish was pulling the dwarf into the water. It is true he caught hold of all the reeds and rushes, but that did not help him much; he had to follow all the movements of the fish, and was in imminent danger of being drowned. The girls, coming at the right time, held him fast and tried to get the beard loose from the line, but in vain – beard and line were entangled fast together. There was nothing to do but to pull out the scissors and to cut off the beard, in doing which a little piece of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that, he cried out: “Is that manners, you goose! to disfigure one’s face so? Is it not enough that you once cut my beard shorter? But now you have cut the best part of it off, I dare not be seen by my people. I wish you had had to run, and had lost the soles of your shoes!” Then he fetched a sack of pearls that lay among the rushes, and, without saying a word more, he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.
Soon after the mother sent the two girls to the town to buy cotton, needles, cord, and tape. The road led them by a heath, scattered over which lay great masses of rock. There they saw a large bird hovering in the air; it flew round and round just above them, always sinking lower and lower, and at last it settled down by a rock not far distant. Directly after they heard a piercing, wailing cry. They ran up, and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance, the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. The compassionate children instantly seized hold of the little man, held him fast, and struggled so long that the eagle let his prey go.
When the dwarf had recovered from his first fright, he called out, in his shrill voice: “Could not you deal rather more gently with me? You have torn my thin coat all in tatters, awkward, clumsy creatures that you are!” Then he took a sack of precious stones, and slipped behind the rock again into his den. The girls, who were used to his ingratitude, went on their way, and completed their business in the town. As they were coming home again over the heath they surprised the dwarf, who had emptied his sack of precious stones on a little clean place, and had not thought that any one would come by there so late. The evening sun shone on the glittering stones, which looked so beautiful in all their colors that the children could not help standing still to gaze.
“Why do you stand there gaping?” cried the dwarf, his ash-colored face turning vermilion with anger.
With these cross words he was going away when he heard a loud roaring, and a black bear trotted out of the woods towards them. The dwarf sprang up terrified, but he could not get to his lurking-hole again – the bear was already close upon him. Then he called out in anguish:
“Dear Mr. Bear, spare me, and you shall have all my treasures; look at the beautiful precious stones that lie there. Give me my life; for what do you want with a poor thin little fellow like me? You would scarcely feel me between your teeth. Rather seize those two wicked girls; they will be tender morsels for you, as fat as young quails; pray, eat them at once.”
The bear, without troubling himself to answer, gave the malicious creature one single stroke with his paw, and he did not move again. The girls had run away, but the bear called after them: “Snow-white and Rose-red, do not be frightened; wait, I will go with you.” Recognizing the voice of their old friend, they stood still, and when the bear came up to them his skin suddenly fell off; and behold he was not a bear, but a handsome young man dressed all in gold.
“I am a king’s son,” said he; “I was changed by the wicked dwarf, who had stolen all my treasures, into a wild bear, and obliged to run about in the wood until I should be freed by his death. Now he has received his well-deserved punishment.”
So they all went home together to the widow’s cottage, and Snow-white was married to the prince and Rose-red to his brother. They divided between them the great treasures which the dwarf had amassed. The old mother lived many quiet and happy years with her children; but when she left her cottage for the palace she took the two rose-trees with her, and they stood before her window and bore every year the most beautiful roses – one white and the other red.
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 forever.
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 more about 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 onto her forehead, and the third onto 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 recognize 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 dreamed 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.
When she saw her own face she was quite frightened, it was so brown and ugly; but when she wet her little hand and rubbed her eyes and forehead her white skin shone through again. Then she took off all her clothes and went into the fresh water. A more beautiful royal child than she could not be found in all the world.
When she had put on her clothes again and plaited her long hair she went to a sparkling spring, and drank some of the water out of the hollow of her hand. Then she wandered farther into the wood, though where she was going she had not the least idea. She thought of her brothers, and she thought of a merciful God who would not forsake her. He let the wild crab-apples grow to feed the hungry. He showed her a tree, the branches of which were bending beneath their weight of fruit. Here she made her midday meal, and, having put props under the branches, she walked on into the thickest part of the forest. It was so quiet that she heard her own footsteps; she heard every little withered leaf which bent under her feet. Not a bird was to be seen, not a ray of sunlight pierced the leafy branches, and the tall trunks were so close together that when she looked before her it seemed as if a thick fence of heavy beams hemmed her in on every side. The solitude was such as she had never known before.
It was a very dark night, not a single glow-worm sparkled in the marsh; sadly she lay down to sleep, and it seemed to her as if the branches above her parted asunder, and the Saviour looked down upon her with His loving eyes, and little angels’ heads peeped out above His head and under His arms.
When she woke in the morning she was not sure if she had dreamed this, or whether it was really true.
She walked a little farther, when she met an old woman with a basket full of berries, of which she gave her some. Elise asked if she had seen eleven princes ride through the wood. “No,” said the old woman, “but yesterday I saw eleven swans, with golden crowns upon their heads, swimming in the stream close by here.”
She led Elise a little farther to a slope, at the foot of which the stream meandered. The trees on either bank stretched out their rich, leafy branches towards each other, and where, from their natural growth, they could not reach each other, they had torn their roots out of the ground, and leaned over the water so as to interlace their branches.
Elise said good-bye to the old woman and walked along by the river till it flowed out into the great open sea.
The beautiful open sea lay before the maiden, but not a sail was to be seen on it – not a single boat. How was she ever to get any farther? She looked at the numberless little pebbles on the beach; they were all worn quite round by the water. Glass, iron, stone, whatever was washed up, had taken their shapes from the water, which yet was much softer than her little hand. “With all its rolling, it is untiring, and everything hard is smoothed down. I will be just as untiring! Thank you for your lesson, you clear rolling waves! Some time, so my poor heart tells me, you will bear me to my beloved brothers!”
Eleven white swans’ feathers were lying on the sea-weed; she picked them up and made a bunch of them. There were still drops of water on them. Whether these were dew or tears no one could tell. It was very lonely there by the shore, but she did not feel it, for the sea was ever changing. There were more changes on it in the course of a few hours than could be seen on an inland fresh-water lake in a year. If a big black cloud arose it was just as if the sea wanted to say, “I can look black too,” and then the wind blew up and the waves showed their white crests. But if the clouds were red and the wind dropped, the sea looked like a rose-leaf, now white, now green. But, however still it was, there was always a little gentle motion just by the shore; the water rose and fell softly, like the bosom of a sleeping child.
When the sun was just about to go down, Elise saw eleven wild swans with golden crowns upon their heads flying towards the shore. They flew in a swaying line, one behind the other, like a white ribbon streamer. Elise climbed up onto the bank and hid behind a bush; the swans settled close by her and flapped their great white wings.
As soon as the sun had sunk beneath the water the swans shed their feathers and became eleven handsome princes; they were Elise’s brothers. Although they had altered a good deal, she knew them at once; she felt that they must be her brothers, and she sprang into their arms, calling them by name. They were delighted when they recognized their little sister who had grown so big and beautiful. They laughed and cried, and told each other how wickedly their stepmother had treated them all.
“We brothers,” said the eldest, “have to fly about in the guise of swans, as long as the sun is above the horizon. When it goes down we regain our human shapes. So we always have to look out for a resting-place near sunset, for should we happen to be flying up among the clouds when the sun goes down we should be hurled to the depths below. We do not live here; there is another land, just as beautiful as this, beyond the sea; but the way to it is very long, and we have to cross the mighty ocean to get to it. There is not a single island on the way where we can spend the night; only one solitary little rock juts up above the water midway. It is only just big enough for us to stand upon close together, and if there is a heavy sea the water splashes over us, yet we thank our God for it. We stay there over night in our human forms, and without it we could never revisit our beloved Fatherland, for our flight takes two of the longest days in the year. We are only permitted to visit the home of our fathers once a year, and we dare only stay for eleven days. We hover over this big forest from whence we catch a glimpse of the palace where we were born, and where our father lives; beyond it we can see the high church towers where our mother is buried. We fancy that the trees and bushes here are related to us; and the wild horses gallop over the moors, as we used to see them in our childhood. The charcoal burners still sing the old songs we used to dance to when we were children. This is our Fatherland, we are drawn towards it, and here we have found you again, dear little sister! We may stay here two days longer, and then we must fly away again across the ocean to a lovely country indeed, but it is not our own dear Fatherland. How shall we ever take you with us! We have neither ship nor boat!”
“How can I deliver you!” said their sister, and they went on talking to each other nearly all night; they only dozed for a few hours.
Elise was awakened in the morning by the rustling of the swans’ wings above her; her brothers were again transformed, and were wheeling round in great circles till she lost sight of them in the distance. One of them, the youngest, stayed behind. He laid his head against her bosom, and she caressed it with her fingers. They remained together all day. Towards evening the others came back, and as soon as the sun went down they took their natural forms.
“To-morrow we must fly away, and we dare not come back for a whole year, but we can’t leave you like this! Have you courage to go with us? My arm is strong enough to carry you over the forest, so surely our united strength ought to be sufficient to bear you across the ocean.”
“Oh yes; take me with you,” said Elise.
They spent the whole night in weaving a kind of net of the elastic bark of the willow bound together with tough rushes; they made it both large and strong. Elise lay down upon it, and when the sun rose and the brothers became swans again they took up the net in their bills and flew high up among the clouds with their precious sister, who was fast asleep. The sunbeams fell straight onto her face, so one of the swans flew over her head so that its broad wings should shade her.
They were far from land when Elise woke; she thought she must still be dreaming, it seemed so strange to be carried through the air so high up above the sea. By her side lay a branch of beautiful ripe berries and a bundle of savory roots which her youngest brother had collected for her, and for which she gave him a grateful smile. She knew it was he who flew above her head shading her from the sun. They were so high up that the first ship they saw looked like a gull floating on the water. A great cloud came up behind them like a mountain, and Elise saw the shadow of herself on it, and those of the eleven swans looking like giants. It was a more beautiful picture than any she had ever seen before, but as the sun rose higher, the cloud fell behind, and the shadow picture disappeared.
They flew on and on all day like an arrow whizzing through the air, but they went slower than usual, for now they had their sister to carry. A storm came up, and night was drawing on; Elise saw the sun sinking with terror in her heart, for the solitary rock was nowhere to be seen. The swans seemed to be taking stronger strokes than ever; alas! she was the cause of their not being able to get on faster; as soon as the sun went down they would become men, and they would all be hurled into the sea and drowned. She prayed to God from the bottom of her heart, but still no rock was to be seen! Black clouds gathered, and strong gusts of wind announced a storm; the clouds looked like a great threatening leaden wave, and the flashes of lightning followed each other rapidly.
The sun was now at the edge of the sea. Elise’s heart quaked, when suddenly the swans shot downward so suddenly that she thought they were falling then they hovered again. Half of the sun was below the horizon, and there for the first time she saw the little rock below, which did not look bigger than the head of a seal above the water. The sun sank very quickly, it was no bigger than a star, but her foot touched solid earth. The sun went out like the last sparks of a bit of burning paper; she saw her brothers stand arm in arm around her, but there was only just room enough for them. The waves beat upon the rock and washed over them like drenching rain. The heavens shone with continuous fire, and the thunder rolled, peal upon peal. But the sister and brothers held one another’s hands and sang a psalm which gave them comfort and courage.