“We went to the dormitory where the monks slept, we saw the novice fast asleep in his cot, and Weland put the sword into his hand, and I remember the young fellow gripped it in his sleep. Then Weland strode as far as he dared into the chapel and threw down all his shoeing-tools – his hammers and pincers and rasps – to show that he had done with them for ever. It sounded like suits of armour falling, and the sleepy monks ran in, for they thought the monastery had been attacked by the French. The novice came first of all, waving his new sword and shouting Saxon battle cries. When they saw the shoeing-tools they were very bewildered, till the novice asked leave to speak, and told what he had done to the farmer, and how, he had found the wonderful rune-carved sword in his cot.
“The abbot shook his head at first, and then he laughed and said to the novice: ‘Son Hugh, it needed no sign from a heathen god to show me that you will never be a monk. Take your sword, and keep your sword, and go with your sword, and be as gentle as you are strong and courteous.’
“Then they went to bed again, all except the novice, and he sat up in the garth playing with his sword. Then Weland said to me by the stables: ‘Farewell, old thing. You had the right of it. You saw me come to England, and you see me go. Farewell!’
“With that he strode down the hill to the corner of the Great Woods – Woods Corner, you call it now – to the very place where he had first landed – and I heard him moving through the thickets towards Horsebridge for a little, and then he was gone. That was how it happened. I saw it.”
Both children drew a long breath.
“But what happened to Hugh the novice?” said Una.
“And the sword?” said Dan.
Puck looked down the meadow that lay all quiet and cool in the shadow of Pook’s Hill.
A big white moth flew unsteadily from the alders and flapped round the children’s heads, and the least little haze of water-mist rose from the brook.
“Do you really want to know?” Puck said.
“We do,” cried the children. “Awfully!”
“Very good, but just now it seems to me that, unless you go back to the house, people will be looking for you. I’ll walk with you as far as the gate.”
“Will you be here when we come again?” they asked.
“Surely, surely,” said Puck. “One minute first, please.”
He gave them each three leaves – one of oak, one of ash and one of thorn.
“Bite these,” said he.” Otherwise you might be talking at home of what you’ve seen and heard, and – if I know human beings – they’d send for the doctor. Bite!”
They bit hard, and found themselves walking side by side to the lower gate. Their father was leaning over it. “And how did your play go?” he asked. “Oh, splendidly” said Dan. “Only afterwards, I think, we went to sleep. It was very hot and quiet. Don’t you remember, Una?” Una shook her head and said nothing.
“I see,” said her father. “But why are you chewing leaves at your time of life, daughter? For fun?”
“No. It was for something, but I can’t exactly remember,” said Una.
My Own Self
By Joseph Jacobs
READING TIME: 6 MINUTES
In a tiny house in the north countrie, far away from any town or village, there lived not long ago, a poor widow all alone with her little son, a six-year-old boy.
The door of the house opened straight on to the hillside and all round about were moorlands and huge stones, and swampy hollows – never a house nor a sign of life wherever you might look – for their nearest neighbours were the ‘ferlies’ in the glen below, and the ‘will-o’-the-wisps’ in the long grass along the pathside.
And many a tale she could tell of the ‘good folk’ calling to each other in the oak trees, and the twinkling lights hopping on to the very windowsill on dark nights, but in spite of the loneliness she lived on from year to year in the little house, perhaps because she was never asked to pay any rent for it.
But she did not care to sit up late, when the fire burnt low, and no one knew what might be about, so, when they had had their supper she would make up a good fire and go off to bed, so that if anything terrible did happen, she could always hide her head under the bedclothes.
This, however, was far too early to please her little son, so when she called him to bed, he would go on playing beside the fire, as if he did not hear her.
He had always been bad to do with since the day he was born, and his mother did not often care to cross him. Indeed, the more she tried to make him obey her, the less heed he paid to anything she said, so it usually ended by his taking his own way.
But one night, just at the end of winter, the widow could not make up her mind to go off to bed, and leave him playing by the fireside, for the wind was tugging at the door, and rattling the windowpanes, and well she knew that on such a night, fairies and suchlike were My Own Self bound to be out and about, and bent on mischief. So she tried to coax the boy into going at once to bed.
The more she begged and scolded, the more he shook his head, and when at last she lost patience and cried that the fairies would surely come and fetch him away, he only laughed and said he wished they would, for he would like one to play with.
At that his mother burst into tears, and went off to bed in despair, certain that after such words something dreadful would happen, while her naughty little son sat on his stool by the fire, not at all put out by her crying.
But he had not long been sitting there alone, when he heard a fluttering sound near him in the chimney and presently down by his side dropped the tiniest wee girl you could think of. She was not a span high, and had hair like spun silver, eyes as green as grass, and cheeks red as June roses. The little boy looked at her with surprise.
“Oh!” said he, “What do they call ye?”
“My own self,” she said in a shrill but sweet voice, and she looked at him too. “And what do they call ye?”
“Just my own self too!” he answered cautiously, and with that they began to play together.
She certainly showed him some fine games. She made animals out of ashes that looked and moved like life, and trees with leaves waving over tiny houses, with men and women an inch high in them, who, when she breathed on them, fell to walking and talking quite properly.
But the fire was getting low, and the light dim, and presently the little boy stirred the coals with a stick to make them blaze, when out jumped a red-hot cinder, and where should it fall, but on the fairy child’s tiny foot.
Thereupon she set up such a squeal that the boy dropped the stick, and clapped his hands to his ears but it grew to so shrill a screech, that it was like all the wind in the world whistling through one tiny keyhole.
There was a sound in the chimney again, but this time the little boy did not wait to see what it was, but bolted off to bed, where he hid under the blankets and listened in fear and trembling to what went on.
A voice came from the chimney speaking sharply:
“Who’s there, and what’s wrong?” it said.
“It’s my own self,” sobbed the fairy child, “and my foot’s burnt sore. Ooh!”
“Who did it?” said the voice angrily, this time sounding nearer, and the boy, peeping from under the clothes, could see a white face looking out from the chimney-opening.
“Just my own self too!” said the fairy child again.
“Then if ye did it your own self,” cried the elf-mother shrilly, “what’s the use of making all this fuss about it?”
And with that she stretched out a long thin arm, and caught the creature by its ear, and, shaking it roughly, pulled it after her, out of sight up the chimney.
The little boy lay awake a long time, listening, in case the fairy-mother should come back after all, and next evening after supper, his mother was surprised to find that he was willing to go to bed whenever she liked.
“He’s taking a turn for the better at last!” she said to herself, but he was thinking just then that, when next a fairy cam
e to play with him, he might not get off quite so easily as he had done this time.
The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese
By William Elliot Griffis
READING TIME: 10 MINUTES
Klaas Van Bommel was a Dutch boy, twelve years old, who lived where cows were plentiful. His appetite was always good and his mother declared his stomach had no bottom. His hair was of a colour halfway between a carrot and a sweet potato. It was as thick as reeds in a swamp and was cut level, from under one ear to another.
Klaas stood in a pair of wooden shoes, that made an awful rattle when he ran fast to catch a rabbit, or scuffed The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese slowly along to school over the brick road of his village. In summer Klaas was dressed in a rough, blue linen blouse. In winter he wore woollen breeches as wide as coffee bags.
Klaas was a farmer’s boy. He had rye bread and fresh milk for breakfast. At dinner time, beside cheese and bread, he was given a plate heaped with boiled potatoes. Into these he first plunged a fork and then dipped each round, white ball into a bowl of hot melted butter. At supper, he had bread and skim milk, left after the cream had been taken off, with a saucer, to make butter. Twice a week the children enjoyed a bowl of soured milk or curds, with a little brown sugar sprinkled on the top. But at every meal there was cheese, usually in thin slices, which the boy thought not thick enough. When Klaas went to bed he usually fell asleep as soon as his shock of hair touched the pillow. In summer he slept till the birds began to sing, at dawn. In winter, when the bed felt warm he often heard the cows talking, in their way, before he jumped out of his bag of straw, which served for a mattress. The Van Bommels were not rich, but everything was shining clean.
There was always plenty to eat at the Van Bommels’ house. Stacks of rye bread, a yard long and thicker than a man’s arm, stood on end in the corner of the cool, stone-lined basement. The loaves of dough were put in the oven once a week. Baking time was a great event at the Van Bommels’ and no menfolks were allowed in the kitchen on that day, unless they were called in to help. As for the milk pails and pans, filled or emptied, scrubbed or set in the sun every day to dry, and the cheeses, piled up in the pantry, they seemed sometimes enough to feed a small army.
But Klaas always wanted more cheese. In other ways, he was a good boy, obedient at home, always ready to work on the cow farm, and diligent in school. But at the table he never had enough. Sometimes his father laughed and asked him if he had a well, or a cave, under his jacket.
Klaas had three younger sisters, Trintjé, Anneké and Saartjé – which is Dutch for Kate, Annie and Sally. One summer’s evening, after a good scolding, which he deserved well, Klaas moped and, almost crying, went to bed in bad humour. He had teased each one of his sisters to give him her bit of cheese, and this, added to his own slice, made his stomach feel as heavy as lead.
Klaas’s bed was up in the garret. When the house was first built, one of the red tiles of the roof had been taken out and another one, made of glass, put in its place. In the morning, this gave Klaas light to put on his clothes. At night, in fair weather, it supplied air to his room.
A gentle breeze was blowing from the pine woods on the sandy slope, not far away. So Klaas climbed up on the stool to sniff the sweet piny odours. He thought he saw lights dancing under the tree. One beam seemed to approach his roof hole. Then it passed to and fro in front of him. It seemed to whisper in his ear, as it moved by. It looked very much as if a hundred fire-flies had united their light into one lamp. Then Klaas thought that the strange beams bore the shape of a lovely girl, but he only laughed at himself at the idea. Pretty soon, however, he thought the whisper became a voice. His eyes twinkled with delight, when the voice gave this invitation:
“There’s plenty of cheese. Come with us.”
To make sure of it, the sleepy boy now rubbed his eyes and cocked his ears. Again, the light bearer spoke to him:
“Come.”
Could it be? He had heard old people tell of the ladies of the wood, that whispered and warned travellers. In fact, he himself had often seen the ‘fairy ring’ in the pine woods. To this, the flame-lady was inviting him.
Again and again the moving light circled the roof. As the moon rose higher in the sky, he could hardly see the moving light that had looked like a lady, but the voice, no longer a whisper, as at first, was now even plainer:
“There’s plenty of cheese. Come with us.”
“I’ll see what it is, anyhow,” said Klaas, as he drew on his thick woollen stockings and prepared to go downstairs and out, without waking a soul. At the door he stepped into his wooden shoes. Then he sped to the pine woods and towards the fairy ring.
What an odd sight! At first Klaas thought it was a circle of big fireflies. Then he saw clearly that there were dozens of pretty creatures, hardly as large as dolls, but as lively as crickets. They were as full of light as if lamps had wings. Hand in hand, they flitted and danced around the ring of grass, as if this was fun.
Hardly had Klaas got over his first surprise, than all of a sudden he felt himself surrounded by the fairies. Some of the strongest among them had left the main party in the circle and come to him. He felt himself pulled by their dainty fingers. One of them, the loveliest of all, whispered in his ear:
“Come, you must dance with us.”
Then a dozen of the pretty creatures murmured in chorus:
“Plenty of cheese here. Plenty of cheese here. Come, come!”
Upon this, the heels of Klaas seemed as light as a feather. In a moment, both hands clasped in those of the fairies, he was dancing in high glee. Klaas had not time to look hard at the fairies, for he was too full of the fun. He danced and danced, all night until the sky in the east began to turn, first grey and then rosy. Then he tumbled down, tired out, and fell asleep. His head lay on the inner curve of the fairy ring, with his feet in the centre.
Klaas felt very happy, for he had no sense of being tired, and he did not know he was asleep. He thought his fairy partners, who had danced with him, were now waiting on him to bring him cheeses. With a golden The Boy Who Wanted More Cheese knife, they sliced them off and fed him out of their own hands. How good it tasted! He thought now he could, and would, eat all the cheese he had longed for all his life. There was no mother to scold him, or daddy to shake his finger at him. How delightful!
But by and by, he wanted to stop eating and rest a while. His jaws were tired. His stomach seemed to be loaded with cannonballs. He gasped for breath.
But the fairies would not let him stop. Flying out of the sky – from the north, south, east and west – they came, bringing cheeses. These they dropped down around him, until the piles of the round masses threatened first to enclose him as with a wall, and then to overtop him. There were the red balls from Edam, the pink and yellow spheres from Gouda, and the grey loaf-shaped ones from Leyden. Down through the vista of sand, in the pine woods, he looked, and oh, horrors! There were the strongest of the fairies rolling along the huge, round cheeses from Friesland! Any one of these was as big as a cart wheel, and would feed a regiment. The fairies trundled the heavy discs along, as if they were playing with hoops. They shouted hilariously, as, with a pine stick, they beat them forward like boys at play.
Soon the cheeses were heaped so high around him that the boy, as he looked up, felt like a frog in a well. He groaned when he thought the high cheese walls were tottering to fall on him. Then he screamed, but the fairies thought he was making music. They, not being human, do not know how a boy feels.
At last, with a thick slice in one hand and a big hunk in the other, he could eat no more cheese – though the fairies, led by their queen, standing on one side, or hovering over his head, still urged him to take more.
At this moment, while afraid that he would burst, Klaas saw the pile of cheeses, as big as a house, topple over. The heavy mass fell inwards upon him. With a scream of terror, he thought himself crushed as flat as a Friesland cheese.
But he wasn’t! Waking up and rubbing his eyes, he
saw the red sun rising on the sand dunes. Birds were singing and the cocks were crowing all around him, in chorus, as if saluting him. Just then the village clock chimed out the hour. He felt his clothes. They were wet with dew. He sat up to look around. There were no fairies, but in his mouth was a bunch of grass which he had been chewing hungrily.
Klaas never would tell the story of his night with the fairies, nor has he yet settled the question of whether they left him because the cheese house of his dream had fallen, or because daylight had come.
Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid and Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby
From The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
READING TIME: 15 MINUTES
Tom is a chimney-sweep’s boy who has run away from his cruel master. When he tried to wash away his soot in a stream, he fell in and became a water baby. He has been swimming around on his own for some time.
And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing, for he had not left the lobster five minutes before he came upon a water baby.
A real live water baby, sitting on the white sand, very Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid and Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby busy about a little point of rock. And when it saw Tom it looked up for a moment, and then cried, “Why, you are not one of us. You are a new baby! Oh, how delightful!”
Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said:
“Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like you again and again, but I thought you were shells, or sea creatures. I never took you for water babies like myself.”
“Now,” said the baby, “come and help me, or I shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is time to go home.”
“What shall I help you at?”
“At this poor dear little rock. A great clumsy boulder came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked all its head off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And now I must plant it again with seaweeds, coral and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest rock garden on all the shore.”
50 Fairy Stories Page 9
