Folk Tales Every Child Should Know by Various
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Various >> Folk Tales Every Child Should Know
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10 [Illustration: An Indian Brave]
FOLK TALES
Every Child Should Know
EDITED BY
Hamilton Wright Mabie
[Illustration]
THE WHAT-EVERY-CHILD-SHOULD-KNOW-LIBRARY
_Published by_
DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & CO., INC., _for_
THE PARENTS' INSTITUTE, INC.
_Publishers of "The Parents' Magazine"_
9 EAST 40th STREET, NEW YORK
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editor and publishers wish to express their appreciation to the
following firms for permission to use the material indicated:
To Messrs. G.P. Putnam's Sons for "Why the Sea is Salt," "The Lad Who
Went to the North Wind," "The Lad and the Deil," and "Ananzi and the
Lion," by Sir George Webbe Dasent, D.C.L.; to the Macmillan Company, New
York, for "The Grateful Foxes" and "The Badger's Money," by A.B.
Mitford; to Messrs. Macmillan & Company, London, for "The Origin of
Rubies," by Rev. Lal Behari Day; to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for
"The Dun Horse," by George Bird Grinnell; to Messrs. Little, Brown &
Company for "The Peasant Story of Napoleon," by Honore de Balzac; to
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company for "Why Brother Bear Has No Tail,"
by Joel Chandler Harris, and for the following selections from "Sixty
Folk Tales, from Exclusively Slavonic Sources," translated by A.H.
Wratislaw, M.A.:--"Long, Broad, and Sharpsight," "Intelligence and
Luck," "George and the Goat," "The Wonderful Hair," "The Dragon and the
Prince," and "The Good Children."
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER
I. HANS IN LUCK
From Grimm's Fairy Tales.
II. WHY THE SEA IS SALT
From "Popular Tales from the
Norse," by Sir George Webbe
Dasent, D.C.L.
III. THE LAD WHO WENT TO THE NORTH WIND
From "Popular Tales from the
Norse," by Sir George Webbe
Dasent, D.C.L.
IV. THE LAD AND THE DEIL
From "Popular Tales from the
Norse," by Sir George Webbe
Dasent, D.C.L.
V. ANANZI AND THE LION
From "Popular Tales from the
Norse," by Sir George Webbe
Dasent, D.C.L.
VI. THE GRATEFUL FOXES
From "Tales of Old Japan," by
A.B. Mitford.
VII. THE BADGER'S MONEY
From "Tales of Old Japan," by
A.B. Mitford.
VIII. WHY BROTHER BEAR HAS NO TAIL
From "Nights with Uncle Remus,"
by Joel Chandler Harris.
IX. THE ORIGIN OF RUBIES
From "Folk Tales of Bengal,"
by Rev. Lal Behari Day.
X. LONG, BROAD, AND SHARPSIGHT
Translated from the Bohemian
by A.H. Wratislaw, M.A., in
"Sixty Folk Tales, from Exclusively
Slavonic Sources."
XI. INTELLIGENCE AND LUCK
Translated from the Bohemian
by A.H. Wratislaw, M.A., in
"Sixty Folk Tales, from Exclusively
Slavonic Sources."
XII. GEORGE WITH THE GOAT
Translated from the Bohemian
by A.H. Wratislaw, M.A., in
"Sixty Folk Tales, from Exclusively
Slavonic Sources."
XIII. THE WONDERFUL HAIR
Translated from the Serbian by
A.H. Wratislaw, M.A., in "Sixty
Folk Tales, from Exclusively Slavonic
Sources."
XIV. THE DRAGON AND THE PRINCE
Translated from the Serbian
by A.H. Wratislaw, M.A., in
"Sixty Folk Tales, from Exclusively
Slavonic Sources."
XV. THE GOOD CHILDREN
A Little Russian story of Galicia.
Translated by A.H.
Wratislaw, M.A., in "Sixty
Folk Tales, from Exclusively
Slavonic Sources."
XVI. THE DUN HORSE
From "Pawnee Hero Stories
and Folk Tales," by George
Bird Grinnell.
XVII. THE GREEDY YOUNGSTER
From the Norwegian tale of
Peter Christen Asbjoernsen.
XVIII. HANS, WHO MADE THE PRINCESS LAUGH
From the Norwegian tale of
Peter Christen Asbjoernsen.
XIX. THE STORY OF TOM TIT TOT
An old Suffolk Tale, given in the
dialect of East Anglia. From
"Tom Tit Tot. An Essay on
Savage Philosophy in Folk
Tale," by Edward Clodd.
XX. THE PEASANT STORY OF NAPOLEON
From "The Country Doctor,"
by Honore de Balzac. Translated
by Katharine Prescott
Wormeley.
INTRODUCTION
When the traveller looks at Rome for the first time he does not realize
that there have been several cities on the same piece of ground, and
that the churches and palaces and other great buildings he sees to-day
rest on an earlier and invisible city buried in dust beneath the
foundations of the Rome of the Twentieth Century. In like manner, and
because all visible things on the surface of the earth have grown out of
older things which have ceased to be, the world of habits, the ideas,
customs, fancies, and arts, in which we live is a survival of a younger
world which long ago disappeared. When we speak of Friday as an unlucky
day, or touch wood after saying that we have had good luck for a long
time, or take the trouble to look at the new moon over the right
shoulder, or avoid crossing the street while a funeral is passing, we
are recalling old superstitions or beliefs, a vanished world in which
our remote forefathers lived.
We do not realize how much of this vanished world still survives in our
language, our talk, our books, our sculpture and pictures. The plays of
Shakespeare are full of reference to the fancies and beliefs of the
English people in his time or in the times not long before him. If we
could understand all these references as we read, we should find
ourselves in a world as different from the England of to-day as England
is from Austria, and among a people whose ideas and language we should
find it hard to understand.
In those early days there were no magazines or newspapers, and for the
people as contrasted with the scholars there were no books. The most
learned men were ignorant of things which intelligent children know
to-day; only a very few men and women could read or write; and all kinds
of beliefs about animals, birds, witches, fairies, giants, and the
magical qualities of herbs and stones flourished like weeds in a
neglected garden. There came into existence an immense mass of
misinformation about all manner of things; some of it very stupid, much
of it very poetic and interesting. Below the region of exact knowledge
accessible to men of education, lay a region of popular fancies, ideas,
proverbs, and superstitions in which the great mass of men and women
lived, and which was a kind of invisible playground for children. Much
of the popular belief about animals and the world was touched with
imagination and was full of suggestions, illustrations, and pictorial
figures which the poets were quick to use. When the king says to Cranmer
in "Henry VIII:" "Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons," he was
thinking of the old custom of giving children at christenings silver or
gilt spoons with handles shaped to represent the figures of the
Apostles. Rich people gave twelve of the "apostles' spoons;" people of
more moderate means gave three or four, or only one with the figure of
the saint after whom the child was named. On Lord Mayor's Day in London,
which came in November and is still celebrated, though shorn of much of
its ancient splendour, the Lord Mayor's fool, as part of the
festivities, jumped into a great bowl of custard, and this is what Ben
Jonson had in mind when he wrote:
"He may, perchance, in tail of a sheriff's dinner,
Skip with a rime o' the table, from near nothing,
And take his almain leap into a custard,
Shall make my lady Maydress and her sisters,
Laugh all their hoods over their shoulders."
It was once widely believed that a stone of magical, medicinal qualities
was set in the toad's head, and so Shakespeare wrote:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in its head."
"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is the most wonderful fairy story in the
world, but Shakespeare did not create it out of hand; he found the fairy
part of it in the traditions of the country people. One of his most
intelligent students says: "He founded his elfin world on the prettiest
of the people's traditions, and has clothed it in the ever-living flower
of his own exuberant fancy."
This immense mass of belief, superstition, fancy, is called folk-lore
and is to be found in all parts of the world. These fancies or faiths or
superstitions were often distorted with stories, and side by side with
folk-lore grew up the folk-tales, of which there are so many that a man
might spend his whole life writing them down. They were not made as
modern stories are often made, by men who think out carefully what they
are to say, arrange the different parts so that they go together like
the parts of a house or of a machine, and write them with careful
selection of words so as to make the story vivid and interesting.
The folk-tales were not written out; many of them grew out of single
incidents or little inventions of fancy, and became longer and larger as
they passed from one story-teller to another and were retold generation
after generation.
Men love stories, and for very good reasons, as has been pointed out in
introductions to other volumes in this series; and the more quick and
original the imagination of a race, the more interesting and varied will
be its stories. From the earliest times, long before books were made,
the people of many countries were eagerly listening to the men and women
who could tell thrilling or humorous tales, as in these later days they
read the novels of the writers who know how to tell a story so as to
stir the imagination or hold the attention and make readers forget
themselves and their worries and troubles. In India and Japan, in Russia
and Roumania, among the Indians at the foot of the Rocky Mountains,
these stories are still told, not only to children by their mothers and
grandmothers, but to crowds of grown-up people by those who have the art
of making tales entertaining; and there are still so many of these
stories floating about the world from one person to another that if they
were written down they would fill a great library. "Until the generation
now lately passed away," says Mr. Gosse in his introduction to that very
interesting book, "Folk and Fairy Tales" by Asbjoernsen, "almost the only
mode in which the Norwegian peasant killed time in the leisure moments
between his daily labour and his religious observances, was in listening
to stories. It was the business of old men and women who had reached the
extreme limit of their working hours, to retain and repeat these ancient
legends in prose and verse, and to recite or sing them when called to do
so." And Miss Hapgood has told us that in Russia these stories have not
only been handed down wholly by word or mouth for a thousand years, but
are flourishing to-day and extending into fresh fields.
The stories made by the people, and told before evening fires, or in
public places and at the gates of inns in the Orient, belong to the ages
when books were few and knowledge limited, or to people whose fancy was
not hampered by familiarity with or care for facts; they are the
creations, as they were the amusement, of men and women who were
children in knowledge, but were thinking deeply and often wisely of what
life meant to them, and were eager to know and hear more about
themselves, their fellows, and the world. In the earlier folk-stories
one finds a childlike simplicity and readiness to believe in the
marvellous; and these qualities are found also in the French peasant's
version of the career of Napoleon.
HAMILTON W. MABIE
FOLK TALES EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW
I
HANS IN LUCK
Hans had served his Master seven years, and at the end of that time he
said to him: "Master, since my time is up, I should like to go home to
my mother; so give me my wages, if you please."
His Master replied, "You have served me truly and honestly, Hans, and
such as your service was, such shall be your reward;" and with these
words he gave him a lump of gold as big as his head. Hans thereupon took
his handkerchief out of his pocket, and, wrapping the gold up in it,
threw it over his shoulder and set out on the road toward his native
village. As he went along, carefully setting one foot to the ground
before the other, a horseman came in sight, trotting gaily and briskly
along upon a capital animal. "Ah," said Hans, aloud, "what a fine thing
that riding is! one is seated, as it were, upon a stool, kicks against
no stones, spares one's shoes, and gets along without any trouble!"
The Rider, overhearing Hans making these reflections, stopped and said,
"Why, then, do you travel on foot, my fine fellow?"
"Because I am forced," replied Hans, "for I have got a bit of a lump to
carry home; it certainly is gold, but then I can't carry my head
straight, and it hurts my shoulder."
"If you like we will exchange," said the Rider. "I will give you my
horse, and you can give me your lump of gold."
"With all my heart," cried Hans; "but I tell you fairly you undertake a
very heavy burden."
The man dismounted, took the gold, and helped Hans on to the horse, and,
giving him the reins into his hands, said, "Now, when you want to go
faster, you must chuckle with your tongue and cry, 'Gee up! gee up!'"
Hans was delighted indeed when he found himself on the top of a horse,
and riding along so freely and gaily. After a while he thought he should
like to go rather quicker, and so he cried, "Gee up! gee up!" as the man
had told him. The horse soon set off at a hard trot, and, before Hans
knew what he was about, he was thrown over head and heels into a ditch
which divided the fields from the road. The horse, having accomplished
this feat, would have bolted off if he had not been stopped by a Peasant
who was coming that way, driving a cow before him. Hans soon picked
himself up on his legs, but he was terribly put out, and said to the
countryman, "That is bad sport, that riding, especially when one mounts
such a beast as that, which stumbles and throws one off so as to nearly
break one's neck. I will never ride on that animal again. Commend me to
your cow: one may walk behind her without any discomfort, and besides
one has, every day for certain, milk, butter, and cheese. Ah! what would
I not give for such a cow!"
"Well," said the Peasant, "such an advantage you may soon enjoy; I will
exchange my cow for your horse."
To this Hans consented with a thousand thanks, and the Peasant, swinging
himself upon the horse, rode off in a hurry.
Hans now drove his cow off steadily before him, thinking of his lucky
bargain in this wise: "I have a bit of bread, and I can, as often as I
please, eat with it butter and cheese, and when I am thirsty I can milk
my cow and have a draught: and what more can I desire?"
As soon, then, as he came to an inn he halted, and ate with great
satisfaction all the bread he had brought with him for his noonday and
evening meals, and washed it down with a glass of beer, to buy which he
spent his two last farthings. This over, he drove his cow farther, but
still in the direction of his mother's village. The heat meantime became
more and more oppressive as noontime approached, and just then Hans came
to a common which was an hour's journey across. Here he got into such a
state of heat that his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and he
thought to himself: "This won't do; I will just milk my cow, and refresh
myself." Hans, therefore tied her to a stump of a tree, and, having no
pail, placed his leathern cap below, and set to work, but not a drop of
milk could he squeeze out. He had placed himself, too, very awkwardly,
and at last the impatient cow gave him such a kick on the head that he
tumbled over on the ground, and for a long time knew not where he was.
Fortunately, not many hours after, a Butcher passed by, trundling a
young pig along upon a wheelbarrow. "What trick is this!" exclaimed he,
helping up poor Hans; and Hans told him that all that had passed. The
Butcher then handed him his flask and said, "There, take a drink; it
will revive you. Your cow might well give no milk: she is an old beast,
and worth nothing at the best but for the plough or the butcher!"
"Eh! eh!" said Hans, pulling his hair over his eyes, "who would have
thought it? It is all very well when one can kill a beast like that at
home, and make a profit of the flesh; but for my part I have no relish
for cow's flesh; it is too tough for me! Ah! a young pig like yours is
the thing that tastes something like, let alone the sausages!"
"Well now, for love of you," said the Butcher, "I will make an exchange,
and let you have my pig for your cow."
"Heaven reward you for your kindness!" cried Hans; and, giving up the
cow, he untied the pig from the barrow and took into his hands the
string with which it was tied.
Hans walked on again, considering how everything had happened just as he
wished, and how all his vexations had turned out for the best after all!
Presently a boy overtook him carrying a fine white goose under his arm,
and after they had said "Good-day" to each other, Hans began to talk
about his luck, and what profitable exchanges he had made. The Boy on
his part told him that he was carrying the goose to a christening-feast.
"Just lift it," said he to Hans, holding it up by its wings, "just feel
how heavy it is; why, it has been fattened up for the last eight weeks,
and whoever bites it when it is cooked will have to wipe the grease from
each side of his mouth!"
"Yes," said Hans, weighing it with one hand, "it is weighty, but my pig
is no trifle either."
While he was speaking the Boy kept looking about on all sides, and
shaking his head suspiciously, and at length he broke out, "I am afraid
it is not all right about your pig. In the village through which I have
just come, one has been stolen out of the sty of the mayor himself; and
I am afraid, very much afraid, you have it now in your hand! They have
sent out several people, and it would be a very bad job for you if they
found you with the pig; the best thing you can do is to hide it in some
dark corner!"
Honest Hans was thunderstruck, and exclaimed, "Ah, Heaven help me in
this fresh trouble! you know the neighbourhood better than I do; do you
take my pig and let me have your goose," said he to the boy.
"I shall have to hazard something at that game," replied the Boy, "but
still I do not wish to be the cause of your meeting with misfortune;"
and, so saying, he took the rope into his own hand, and drove the pig
off quickly by a side-path, while Hans, lightened of his cares, walked
on homeward with the goose under his arm. "If I judge rightly," thought
he to himself, "I have gained even by this exchange: first there is a
good roast; then the quantity of fat which will drip out will make goose
broth for a quarter of a year; and then there are fine white feathers,
which, when once I have put into my pillow I warrant I shall sleep
without rocking. What pleasure my mother will have!"
As he came to the last village on his road there stood a Knife-grinder,
with his barrow by the hedge, whirling his wheel round and singing:
"Scissors and razors and such-like I grind;
And gaily my rags are flying behind."
Hans stopped and looked at him, and at last he said, "You appear to have
a good business, if I may judge by your merry song?"
"Yes," answered the Grinder, "this business has a golden bottom! A true
knife-grinder is a man who as often as he puts his hand into his pocket
feels money in it! But what a fine goose you have got; where did you buy
it?"
"I did not buy it at all," said Hans, "but took it in exchange for my
pig." "And the pig?" "I exchanged for my cow." "And the cow?" "I
exchanged a horse for her." "And the horse?" "For him I gave a lump of
gold as big as my head." "And the gold?" "That was my wages for a seven
years' servitude." "And I see you have known how to benefit yourself
each time," said the Grinder; "but, could you now manage that you heard
the money rattling in your pocket as you walked, your fortune would be
made."
"Well! how shall I manage that?" asked Hans.
"You must become a grinder like me; to this trade nothing peculiar
belongs but a grindstone; the other necessaries find themselves. Here is
one which is a little worn, certainly, and so I will not ask anything
more for it than your goose; are you agreeable?"
"How can you ask me?" said Hans; "why, I shall be the luckiest man in
the world; having money as often as I dip my hand into my pocket, what
have I to care about any longer?"
So saying, he handed over the goose, and received the grindstone in
exchange.
"Now," said the Grinder, picking up an ordinary big flint stone which
lay near, "now, there you have a capital stone upon which only beat them
long enough and you may straighten all your old nails! Take it, and use
it carefully!"
Hans took the stone and walked on with a satisfied heart, his eyes
glistening with joy. "I must have been born," said he, "to a heap of
luck; everything happens just as I wish, as if I were a Sunday-child."
Soon, however, having been on his legs since daybreak, he began to feel
very tired, and was plagued too with hunger, since he had eaten all his
provision at once in his joy about the cow bargain. At last he felt
quite unable to go farther, and was forced, too, to halt every minute
for the stones encumbered him very much. Just then the thought overcame
him, what a good thing it were if he had no need to carry them any
longer, and at the same moment he came up to a stream. Here he resolved
to rest and refresh himself with drink, and so that the stones might not
hurt him in kneeling he laid them carefully down by his side on the
bank. This done, he stooped down to scoop up some water in his hand, and
then it happened that he pushed one stone a little too far, so that both
presently went plump into the water. Hans, as soon as he saw them
sinking to the bottom, jumped up for joy, and then kneeled down and
returned thanks, with tears in his eyes, that so mercifully, and without
any act on his part, and in so nice a way, he had been delivered from
the heavy stones, which alone hindered him from getting on.
"So lucky as I am," exclaimed Hans, "is no other man under the sun!"
Then with a light heart, and free from every burden, he leaped gaily
along till he reached his mother's house.
II
WHY THE SEA IS SALT
Once on a time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two
brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one
hadn't so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so he
went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas with, in
God's name. It was not the first time his brother had been forced to
help him, and you may fancy he wasn't very glad to see his face, but he
said:
"If you will do what I ask you to do, I'll give you a whole flitch of
bacon."
So the poor brother said he would do anything and was full of thanks.
"Well, here is the flitch," said the rich brother, "and now go straight
to Hell."
"What I have given my word to do, I must stick to," said the other; so
he took the flitch and set off. He walked the whole day, and at dusk he
came to a place where he saw a very bright light.
"Maybe this is the place," said the man to himself. So he turned aside,
and the first thing he saw was an old, old man, with a long white beard,
who stood in an outhouse, hewing wood for the Christmas fire.
"Good even," said the man with the flitch.
"The same to you; whither are you going so late?" said the man.
"Oh! I'm going to Hell, if I only knew the right way," answered the poor
man.
"Well, you're not far wrong, for this is Hell," said the old man; "when
you get inside they will be all for buying your flitch, for meat is
scarce in Hell; but, mind you don't sell it unless you get the
hand-quern which stands behind the door for it. When you come out, I'll
teach you how to handle the quern, for it's good to grind almost
anything."
So the man with the flitch thanked the other for his good advice, and
gave a great knock at the Devil's door.
When he got in, everything was just as the old man had said. All the
devils, great and small, came swarming up to him like ants round an
anthill, and each tried to outbid the other for the flitch.
"Well!" said the man, "by rights, my old dame and I ought to have this
flitch for our Christmas dinner; but since you have all set your hearts
on it, I suppose I must give it up to you; but if I sell it at all, I'll
have for it the quern behind the door yonder."
At first the Devil wouldn't hear of such a bargain, and chaffed and
haggled with the man; but he stuck to what he said, and at last the
Devil had to part with his quern. When the man got out into the yard, he
asked the old woodcutter how he was to handle the quern; and after he
had learned how to use it, he thanked the old man and went off home as
fast as he could, but still the clock had struck twelve on Christmas eve
before he reached his own door.
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