Part 6

When midnight came there was a sound of bells, and a white light, and the fairies came riding by. First came the Queen, and she was very beautiful, with a circlet of stars about her head. Then came her ladies and squires, talking and laughing together; and next a troop of knights all in green, and each with a silver horn. Some rode on black horses, and some on brown, but one knight there was who rode a milk-white steed. His right hand was gloved, but his left hand hung down bare at his side. He rode on and never turned his head, but when Janet saw him she knew him for her true love, Tamlane, and she sprang forward and caught him by the mantle and pulled him down from off his horse and gripped him tight. Then from all the fairy train there arose a cry, “Tamlane’s awa’!” “Tamlane’s awa’!”

Suddenly it was no knight that Janet held in her arms, but a great grey wolf. It struggled and snapped, and its breath was hot in her face. Almost it broke from her, but she remembered Tamlane’s words and held it tight. And then it was not a wolf she held, but a bale of burning straw. The flames roared in her ears, but she clasped it close, and it did not scorch her. Then it was a great serpent that wrapped itself about her, and tried to slip from her arms, but she held it tight and did not let it go. Then it was a swan that beat its wings in her face, but she shut her eyes and held it. Then the wings were still, and she opened her eyes, and saw it was her own true love, Tamlane, that she clasped in her arms.

The Fairy Queen turned herself about, and she cried, “Tamlane, Tamlane, if I had known yesterday what I know to-day, I would have taken out your two blue eyes and given you eyes of stone; had I known yesterday what I know to-day, I would have taken the heart of flesh out of your bosom and put in a heart of clay; had I but known yesterday what I know now, never should you have ridden abroad with me this night!”

Then suddenly the fairies were gone, and Tamlane and Janet stood there alone. He took her by the hand, and they went back to her father’s castle together. There they were married with great joy and feasting, and they lived together happily all the rest of their lives, a faithful and loving man and wife.

THE FARMER AND THE PIXY

AN ENGLISH FAIRY TALE

FARMER BOGGINS lived on a lonely farm, and there were a great many pixies and other fairies all around.

One morning in threshing-time Farmer Boggins went out to the barn before anyone else, and what was his surprise to find that a great heap of grain had been threshed out in the night. He wondered who had done it. When his labourers came to work he questioned them, but none of them knew anything about it.

The next night the same thing happened; no one went near the barn, but in the morning there was a heap of clean grain on the floor.

The third night the farmer made up his mind to find out who it was that was helping him, so he hid himself behind some hay, and lay there watching. The moon shone in and lighted all the floor, but for a long time the farmer heard and saw nothing.

Then suddenly he heard a sound of threshing, and there was a pixy beating out the grain with a flail. The little man was not a foot high. He was as brown as a nut and had scarce a rag of clothes upon him.

He worked so hard that the sweat poured down his forehead, and now and then he stopped to wipe it away. Then he would cry out proudly, “How I sweat! How I sweat!”

The farmer was filled with admiration, and the third time the little man cried “How I sweat!” the farmer could hold his tongue no longer, but answered him, “That you do!”

No sooner had he spoken, however, than the pixy was gone.

The farmer waited for a while, but the little man did not return. At last Farmer Boggins went back to the house and told his good wife all that had happened.

“You stupid!” she cried, when he had made an end of the story. “You should never have spoken to him. The small folk cannot bear to be spoken to!”

Well, the mischief was done, and now the only thing to do was to think of some way to coax the pixy back again to the work.

Early the next morning the good wife woke her husband.

“Husband,” said she, “did you say the little man had scarce a stitch of clothes upon him?”

“That’s what I said,” answered the farmer.

“Then listen,” said his wife. “To-day I will make a little suit of clothes for him, and you shall take it out and lay it in the barn where he will be likely to see it if he comes back. Maybe then he’ll be so pleased he’ll get over his anger and begin to work for you again.”

Well, that seemed a good plan to the farmer, so his wife set to work, and by evening she had made a complete set of little clothes just the size for a pixy. The farmer took it out to the barn and spread it out in the moonlight and hid himself where he could watch and see what would happen.

For a long time all was still, and Farmer Boggins was beginning to feel sleepy, when suddenly he saw the pixy was there. The little man had a flail in his hands and was going toward a heap of grain. Then he saw the little suit lying there in the moonlight. At first he stood quite still, and then he laid down the flail and took up the clothes. He looked at them all over, and then he put them on.

When he was dressed he began to hop about and sing:

“How fine I am, how fine I am: Now I am nobody’s working-man.”

So singing, he danced across the floor and out of the barn and down the hill.

Then the farmer was in a rage. His wife had taken all the trouble to make the clothes, and the little man had taken them and gone off without doing a stroke of work to pay for them. But this should not be the end of the matter.

At the foot of the hill the farm road crossed a stream, and there was a bridge. The farmer went down to the bridge and hid himself beside it, for he thought that if the pixy were really leaving the farm, this was the way he would go.

Sure enough, Boggins had not been hidden there long when he heard a sound of voices, and along came a whole troop of pixies. They all looked exactly like the little man the farmer had seen in the barn, but none of them were dressed. Last of all came a pixy in a little suit of clothes, so the farmer knew he must be the one who had threshed out the grain.

Just as this pixy reached the bridge, Farmer Boggins stepped out in front of him. “Not so fast, my fine little fellow,” he said. “There’s some work owing me in payment for that suit you’re wearing.”

The farmer had scarcely got the words out of his mouth when he heard a great splash in the stream behind him, and a voice that sounded like his wife’s cried, “Husband! Husband! Come quick and help me, or I’ll drown.”

The farmer turned about, and immediately there was a burst of elfin laughter. The stream lay silent and smooth in the moonlight. No one was there, and when the farmer turned back to the bridge again every pixy was gone from it.

Then the farmer knew that he had been tricked, and he had to go home without either the pixy or the suit of clothes. His wife was there though. She had never been out of the house at all, and a fine scolding she gave him for letting himself be tricked that way by the little men.

But the pixy never came back to help him with his grain, or to thank him for the suit of clothes either.

RABBIT’S EYES

A KOREAN FAIRY TALE

ONCE upon a time the king of the fishes fell ill, and no one knew what was the matter with him. All the doctors in the sea were called in, one after another, and not one of them could cure him.

Once when the fishes were talking about it, a turtle stuck its head out of a crack in a rock. “It is a pity,” said the turtle, “that no one has ever thought of asking my advice. I could cure the king in a twinkling. All he has to do is to swallow the eye of a live rabbit, and he will become perfectly well again.”

This the turtle said, not because he knew anything at all about the matter, but because he wished to appear wise before the fishes.

Now it so chanced that one of the fishes that heard him was the son of the king’s councillor, and he swam straight home and told his father what he had heard the turtle say. The councillor told the king, and the king, who was feeling very ill that day, bade them bring the turtle to him immediately.

When the messengers told the turtle that the king wished to speak to him, the turtle was very much frightened. He drew his head and his tail into his shell and pretended that he was asleep, but in the end he was obliged to go with the messengers.

They soon reached the palace, and the turtle was taken immediately to where the king was. He was lying on a bed of seaweed and looking very ill indeed, and all his doctors were gathered round him.

The king turned his eyes toward the turtle, and spoke in a weak voice. “Tell me, friend, is it true that you said you could cure me?”

Yes, it was true.

“And that all I have to do is to swallow the eye of a live rabbit, and I will be well again?”

Yes, that was true too.

“Then go get a live rabbit and bring it here immediately, that I may be well.”

When the turtle heard these words he was in despair. It did not seem at all likely that he could catch a rabbit and bring it down into the sea, but he was so much afraid of the king that he did not dare to explain this to him. He said nothing, but crawled away as soon as he could, wishing he could find some crack where he could hide himself and never be found again.

Suddenly he remembered he had once seen a rabbit frisking about on a hill not far from the seashore, and he determined to set out to find it.

He crawled out of the sea and started up the hill. He climbed and he climbed, and after a while he came to the top, and there he sat down to rest.

Presently along came the rabbit, and it stopped to speak to him.

“Good day,” said the rabbit.

“Good day,” said the turtle.

“And what are you doing so far away from the sea?” asked the rabbit.

“Oh, I only came up here to look about and see what the green world was like,” answered the turtle.

“And what do you think of it, now you are here?”

“Oh, it’s not so bad; but you ought to see the beautiful palaces and gardens we have down under the sea.” The turtle began telling the rabbit about them, and he talked so long and said so many fine things about them, that the rabbit began to wish to see them for himself.

“Would it be very hard for me to live down under the water?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” said the turtle. “It might be a little inconvenient at first, but that would not last long. If you like, I will take you on my back and carry you down to the bottom of the sea, and then you can see whether it is not all just as grand and beautiful as I have been telling you.”

Well, the rabbit could not resist his curiosity, and he agreed to go with the turtle.

They went to the edge of the sea, and then the rabbit got on the turtle’s back, and down they went through the water to the very bottom of the sea. The rabbit did not like it at first, but he soon grew used to it, and when he saw all the fine palaces and gardens that were there, he was filled with wonder.

The turtle took him directly to the palace of the king. There he bade the rabbit get down and wait awhile, and he promised that presently he would show him the king of all this magnificence.

The rabbit was delighted and willingly agreed to wait there while the turtle went to announce him.

But while the turtle was away the rabbit heard two fishes talking in the room next to where he was. He was very inquisitive, so he cocked his ears forward and listened to what they were saying. What was his horror to find that they were talking about taking out his eyes and giving them to the king. The rabbit did not know what to do, nor how he was to escape from the dangerous position he was in.

Presently the turtle came back, and the chief councillor came with him, and immediately the rabbit began to talk. “Well,” said he, “it all seems very fine here, and I am glad I came, but I wish now I had brought my own eyes with me so that I could see it better. You see, the eyes I have in my head now are only glass eyes. I am so afraid of getting my own eyes hurt or dusty that I generally keep them in a safe place, and wear these glass eyes instead. But if I had only known how much there would be to look at, I would certainly have brought my own eyes.”

When the turtle and the councillor heard this, they were very much disappointed, for they believed the rabbit was speaking the truth, and that the eyes he had in his head at the time were only glass eyes.

“I will take you back to the shore,” said the turtle, “and then you can go and get your real eyes and come back again, for there are many more things for you to see here—things more wonderful and beautiful than anything I have yet shown you.”

Well, the rabbit was willing to do that, so he got upon the turtle’s back, and the turtle swam up and up with him through the sea.

As soon as they reached the shore the rabbit leaped from the turtle’s back, and away he went up the hill as fast as he could scamper, and he was glad enough to be out of that scrape, I can tell you. But the turtle waited, and he waited, and he waited, but the rabbit never did come back, and at last the turtle was obliged to go home without him.

As for the king of the fishes, if he ever got well, it was not the eye of a live rabbit that cured him; of that you may be sure.

MUDJEE MONEDO

AN AMERICAN INDIAN TALE

UPON the banks of the broad Ogechee River there once stood a little Indian village. The people who lived there were prosperous and happy. There were fish in the river and game in the forest, and no one lacked for anything.

But after a time a terrible misfortune fell upon the people. An ogre named Mudjee Monedo came to live near them. Upon an open plain he laid out a racecourse, and it was his amusement to challenge the young men of the village to race with him there. None dared to refuse, for the ogre was cruel and revengeful, and they feared what he might do to the old men and children if they should refuse; and yet to race with him meant death.

“Life against life,” the ogre would cry, laying his hand on the goal-post. “My life in wager against yours. This post is the goal, yonder charred stump the turning-point. The loser pays the forfeit with his life.”

But none of the Indian warriors ever could win in that race with Mudjee Monedo. The ogre had the power to turn himself at will into any four-footed animal that he might choose. If he found he was being outstripped in the race he would change himself into a wolf, a deer, or a buffalo, and so easily win the race against the swiftest runner of them all. So, one after another, the finest young men of the village were slain at the goal-post.

A deep gloom settled over those who were still left alive. They would have taken their wives and children and gone elsewhere to live, but they knew the ogre would follow on their tracks. Their only hope was that some time a warrior might rise among them who would be able to outwit the ogre and win the race.

Somewhat away from the other lodges, and in the shadow of the forest, lived a widow with a daughter and a young son. This son was a boy of twelve named Manedowa. The widow’s husband and her ten eldest sons had all raced with the ogre at one time or another, and all had paid the forfeit with their lives. Now Manedowa was fast growing tall and manly. Instead of being glad of this the widow was terrified. She dreaded the time when the ogre might think the boy old enough to race with him. Already Mudjee Monedo had his eye upon him. Often he would make some excuse to come to the lodge when the boy was busy there. Then the ogre would look him up and down.

“You are growing fast,” he would say. “You will make a famous runner. Some time you must come and look at my racecourse. Perhaps we may even run a friendly race together—though I am growing too old and stiff to have any chance against young limbs like yours.”

Then the widow would shudder and make some excuse to send the boy away out of sight. She knew that when he was fully grown it would not be for long that the ogre would spare him.

One day the boy was away fishing and the widow and her daughter were busy in the lodge together. Suddenly a shadow fell across the floor. They looked up in terror, expecting to see the ogre peering in. Instead, a handsome young warrior stood there in the doorway. He was a stranger. They had never seen him before. The sunshine played upon his shining limbs like fire. His eyes were bright and piercing, and above his forehead waved a plume of gorgeous feathers. For a moment he stood looking in upon them. Then he laid a deer down upon the threshold, and silently turned and disappeared in the green depths of the forest.

Wondering, the mother and her daughter stared after him. They did not know who he could be. They waited for some time, and then, as he did not return, they cut up the deer and hung it up to dry.

Two days after this the stranger again came to the lodge. As silently as before he laid a bear down before them, and again disappeared among the thickets; but that night they heard the sound of his pipe not far from the lodge; it was a love song to the girl that he was playing.

The next evening he came again, bringing more game, but this time he entered and sat down. After that he stayed in the widow’s lodge, and the girl became his wife. She was very happy, for no other hunter brought home such fine game as he, and no other was as handsome and as noble-looking.

Every morning he went away, gliding off silently into the depths of the forest and disappearing from their sight. Where he went they did not know, but every night he came again, bringing to them the choicest of game and fish. The plume above his forehead shone with strange colours, and sometimes it seemed as though the light about him came from himself, and not from the sunshine or the firelight. Neither the girl nor her mother dared to question him as to who he was or whence he came.

With so much game hanging about the lodge it was not long before Mudjee Monedo grew suspicious. He suspected that some warrior had come to live with the widow and her daughter and that they were hiding it from him. Often he stole up silently to the lodge hoping to find the hunter there, but he never saw him. At last he questioned the widow openly.

“All this game,” he said, trying to smile at her pleasantly, “where does it come from?”

The widow began to tremble. “My son—” she began.

“Your son!” interrupted the Magician. “Do you mean to tell me that your son could shoot a bear or a buffalo such as I have seen here?”

“He is very large and strong for his age,” said the poor widow.

“If he is old enough to shoot such game he is old enough to race with me,” cried the ogre. “I will come again when he is at home, and he and I will talk of it.”

The Mudjee Monedo turned on his heel and strode away through the forest, breaking the young trees and muttering to himself as he went.

The widow and her daughter were almost dead with fright. If they told the ogre of the strange warrior who had come to live in their lodge he would without doubt challenge the stranger to race with him. If they did not, it would be the boy who would be slain.

That night when the hunter returned as usual with his game the widow told him of all that had happened—of how Mudjee Monedo had come to the lodge and questioned her, of how she had pretended it was her son who had shot the game, and of the threat that the ogre had used.

The warrior listened to all she had to say in silence. When she had ended he answered calmly, “It is well. I will run a race with this Mudjee Monedo. To-morrow he will come this way again. Then ask him to stop and eat with you, and I too will be here.”

His wife and her mother began to beg and implore him not to let the Magician see him, but he silenced them. “Let it be as I say,” said he. “To-morrow do you put corn meal and herbs in a pot to cook, and add to it three birch buds. Mudjee Monedo and I will eat of it together.”

The next morning very early the ogre appeared at the lodge door, but the stranger had already gone into the forest. Mudjee Monedo looked about him and saw all the fresh meat. “Truly your son has become a mighty hunter,” he sneered.

“No, Mudjee Monedo,” answered the widow. “I knew it was useless to try to deceive you. It is not my son, but my son-in-law, who has shot all this game. He is a mighty warrior. He will soon return from the forest. Sit down, and when he comes you can eat together.”

“Did I not know it?” cried the ogre triumphantly. “No one may hope to deceive Mudjee Monedo for long.”

He entered the lodge and sat down. He had not been there long before the stranger appeared in the doorway. The brave was in the full dress of a warrior. Across his forehead was a broad band of red paint, and the feathers above his forehead were red and blue. The ogre’s eyes glistened at the sight of him. The hunter greeted Mudjee Monedo, and sat down not far from him.

Presently, while his wife and mother-in-law made ready the food, he and the ogre talked. Soon Mudjee Monedo asked the warrior whether he would not run a race with him upon his racecourse.

Calmly the stranger agreed.

“But I am growing old,” said Mudjee Monedo slyly. “I am not strong and tireless as I was once. Because of that, if I race with you you must let me set the wager.”

To this, also, the stranger agreed. Then the food was ready, and he courteously asked Mudjee Monedo to eat with him. The ogre could not refuse, but when he saw the dish that was set before them he became very uneasy. Well he knew that for him there was evil in that food. The strange warrior, however, took no notice of his confusion. He dipped into the dish and ate of it, and Mudjee Monedo was obliged to do likewise, though the herbs that were in it tickled his throat and set him coughing.

Finally the warrior lifted the dish, drank deep of it, and handed it to the other. The ogre hesitated a moment. The broth was hateful to him, but he was afraid to refuse. In haste to be done with it he raised it to his mouth and swallowed what was left of it at one gulp.

Suddenly he coughed and choked. One of the birch buds at the bottom of the pot had lodged in his windpipe. His face turned purple and his eyes seemed starting from their sockets. He got to his feet and staggered out into the open air. A moment he turned and tried to speak, but a violent fit of coughing stopped him, and he hurried away through the thickets, still wheezing and choking as he went.

By the next day the news had gone through the village that a strange warrior was to run a race with Mudjee Monedo, and a great crowd gathered on the hills near by to see the race.

When the stranger appeared upon the course a murmur of wonder arose. Never had the people seen such a warrior before. He was taller by a head than the tallest youth in the village, and his feet scarce seemed to touch the earth, so lightly did he walk. Then hope sprang up in the people’s hearts. Might it not be that this wondrous stranger would in some way win the race and free them from the power of the ogre.

Mudjee Monedo looked about him at the waiting people, and seemed to read what was in their hearts. His lips drew back in a cruel smile. Then he laid his hand upon the goal-post.

“You have let me choose my own wager,” he cried aloud, so that all might hear what he said to the stranger. “It is this: life against life; my life against yours. This post is the goal, yonder charred stump the turning-point. The loser pays the forfeit.”

“So be it,” answered the stranger in a clear ringing voice. “I will abide by the wager, as must you.”