50 Fairy Stories Page 19

  Tom danced till he was tired. He offered two pence to the piper, but not a penny would the piper take from him.

  The young man came up and said, “Well, you are a brave man and courageous, and for the future we’ll be good friends. You can take the cow.”

  “I will not take her, you may keep her and welcome, for you are all very good people.”

  “Well,” said the young man, “the cow is yours, and it’s why I took her because there were many children in the fort without nurses, but the children are reared now, and you may take the cow. I put an old stray horse in place of her and made him look like your own beast, and it’s an old horse you’ve been eating all the year. From this day forwards you’ll grow rich and have luck. We’ll not trouble you, but help you.”

  Tom took the cow and drove her home. From that day forwards Tom Connors’ cows had two calves apiece and his mare had two foals and his sheep two lambs every year, and every acre of the land he had gave him as much crop in one year as another man got from an acre in seven. At last Connors was a very rich man – and why not, when the fairies were with him?

  Fairy Ointment

  By Joseph Jacobs

  READING TIME: 5 MINUTES

  Dame Goody was a nurse that looked after sick people, and minded babies. One night she was woke up at midnight, and when she went downstairs, she saw a strange, little old fellow, who asked her to come to his wife who was too ill to mind her baby. Dame Goody didn’t like the look of the old fellow, but business is business, so she popped on her things, and went down to him. And when she got down to him, he whisked her up on to a large coal-black horse with fiery eyes, that stood at the door, and soon they were going at a rare pace, Dame Goody holding on to the old fellow like grim death.

  They rode and they rode, till at last they stopped before a cottage door. So they got down and went in and found the good woman in bed with the children playing about, and the babe, a fine bouncing boy, beside her.

  Dame Goody took the babe, which was as fine a baby boy as you’d wish to see. The mother, when she handed the baby to Dame Goody to mind, gave her a box of ointment, and told her to stroke the baby’s eyes with it as soon as it opened them.

  After a while it began to open its eyes. Dame Goody saw that it had eyes just like its father. So she took the box of ointment and stroked its two eyelids with it. But she couldn’t help wondering what it was for, as she had never seen such a thing done before. So she looked to see if the others were looking, and, when they were not noticing, she stroked her own right eyelid with the ointment.

  No sooner had she done so, than everything seemed changed about her. The cottage became elegantly furnished. The mother in the bed was a beautiful lady, dressed up in white silk. The little baby was still more beautiful than before, and its clothes were made of a sort of silvery gauze.

  Its little brothers and sisters around the bed were flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one another, and scratched their heads. In fact, they were up to all kinds of mischief, and Dame Goody knew that she had got into a house of fairies. But she said nothing to nobody, and as soon as the lady was well enough to mind the baby, she asked the old fellow to take her back home. So he came round to the door with the coal-black horse with eyes of fire, and off they went as fast as before till they came to Dame Goody’s cottage, where the strange fellow lifted her down and left her, thanking her civilly enough, and paying her more than she had ever been paid before for such service.

  Now next day happened to be market day, and as Dame Goody had been away from home, she wanted many things in the house, and trudged off to get them at the market. As she was buying the things she wanted, who should she see but the strange fellow who had taken her on the coal-black horse. And what do you think he was doing? Why he went about from stall to stall taking things from each – here some fruit, and there some eggs, and so on – and no one seemed to take any notice.

  Now Dame Goody did not think it her business to interfere, but she thought she ought not to let so good a customer pass without speaking. So she went up to him, bobbed a curtsey and said:

  “Good day, sir, I hope your good lady and the little one are as well as—”

  But she couldn’t finish what she was saying, for the funny old fellow started back in surprise, and he said to her, “What! Do you see me today?”

  “See you,” said she, “why, of course I do, as plain as the sun in the skies, and what’s more,” said she, “I see you are busy, too, into the bargain.”

  “Ah, you see too much,” said he, “now, pray, with which eye do you see all this?”

  “With the right eye to be sure,” said she, as proud as can be to find him out.

  “The ointment! The ointment!” cried the old fairy thief. “Take that for meddling with what don’t concern you – you shall see me no more.” And with that he struck her on the right eye, and she couldn’t see him anymore, and, what was worse, she was blind on the right side from that hour till the day of her death.

  Bruno’s Revenge

  From Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll

  READING TIME: 20 MINUTES

  What is the best time for seeing Fairies? I believe I can tell you all about that.

  The first rule is, that it must be a very hot day, and you must be just a little sleepy, but not too sleepy to keep your eyes open, mind. Well, and you ought to feel a little, what one may call ‘fairyish’ – the Scotch call it ‘eerie,, and perhaps that’s a prettier word. If you don’t know what it means, I’m afraid I can hardly explain it – you must wait till you meet a fairy, then you’ll know. And the last rule is, that the crickets should not be chirping. I can’t stop to explain that – you must take it on trust for the present.

  So, if all these things happen together, you have a good chance of seeing a fairy – or at least a much better chance than if they didn’t.

  The first thing I noticed, as I went lazily along through an open place in the wood, was a large beetle lying struggling on its back, and I went down upon one knee to help the poor thing to its feet again. I was just reaching out a little stick to turn the beetle over, when I saw a sight that made me draw back hastily and hold my breath, for fear of making any noise and frightening the little creature away.

  Not that she looked as if she would be easily frightened – she seemed so good and gentle that I’m sure she would never expect that anyone could wish to hurt her. She was only a few inches high, and was dressed in green, so that you really would hardly have noticed her among the long grass, and she was so delicate and graceful that she quite seemed to belong to the place, almost as if she were one of the flowers. I may tell you, besides, that she had no wings (I don’t believe in fairies with wings), and that she had quantities of long brown hair and large earnest brown eyes, and then I shall have done all I can to give you an idea of her.

  Sylvie (I found out her name afterwards) had knelt down, just as I was doing, to help the beetle, but it needed more than a little stick for her to get it on its legs again, it was as much as she could do, with both arms, to roll the heavy thing over, and all the while she was talking to it, half scolding and half comforting, “There, there! You needn’t cry so much about it.And how did you come to tumble over? But I can see well enough how it was – I needn’t ask you that – walking over sand pits with your chin in the air, as usual. You should look.” The beetle murmured something that sounded like “I did look,” and Sylvie went on again.

  “But I know you didn’t! You never do! You always walk with your chin up. Well, let’s see how many legs are broken this time. Why, none of them, I declare! And what’s the good of having six legs, my dear, if you can only kick them all about in the air when you tumble? Legs are meant to walk with, you know. Now don’t begin putting out your wings yet, I’ve more to say. Go to the frog that lives behind that buttercup – and tell him he’s to give you some of that salve I left with him yesterday. And you’d better get him to rub it in for you. He’s got rather cold hands, but you m
ustn’t mind that.”

  I think the beetle must have shuddered at this idea, for Sylvie went on in a graver tone. “Now you needn’t pretend to be so particular as all that. Suppose you could get nobody but a toad to do it, how would you like that?”

  There was a little pause, and then Sylvie added “Now you may go. Be a good beetle, and don’t keep your chin in the air.”

  And then began one of those performances of humming, and whizzing, and restless banging about, such as a beetle indulges in when it has decided on flying, but hasn’t quite made up its mind which way to go. At last, in one of its awkward zigzags, it managed to fly right into my face, and, by the time I had recovered from the shock, the little fairy was gone.

  I looked about in all directions for the little creature, but there was no trace of her – and my ‘eerie, feeling was quite gone off, and the crickets were chirping again merrily – so I knew she was really gone.

  And now I’ve got time to tell you the rule about the crickets. They always stop chirping when a fairy goes by – because a fairy’s a kind of queen over them, I suppose (at all events it’s a much grander thing than a cricket) so whenever you,re walking out, and the crickets suddenly leave off chirping, you may be sure that they see a fairy.

  I walked on sadly enough, you may be sure. However, I comforted myself with thinking ‘It’s been a very wonderful afternoon, so far. I’ll just go quietly on and look about me, and I shouldn’t wonder if I were to come across another Fairy somewhere.,

  And so I did, indeed, I very nearly walked over him, without seeing him, which would have been dreadful, always supposing that fairies can be walked over (my own belief is that they are something of the nature of will-o,-the-wisps, and there’s no walking over them).

  Think of any pretty little boy you know, with rosy cheeks, large dark eyes, and tangled brown hair, and then fancy him made small enough to go comfortably into a coffee cup, and you’ll have a very fair idea of him.

  “What’s your name, little one?” I began, in as soft a voice as I could manage.

  I felt it quite necessary to know his name, so, as he didn’t answer my question,

  I asked it again a little louder. “What’s your name, my little man?”

  “What’s oors?” he said, without looking up.

  I told him my name quite gently, for he was much too small to be angry with.

  “Duke of Anything?” he asked, just looking at me for a moment, and then going on with his work.

  “Not duke at all,” I said.

  “Oo’re big enough to be two dukes,” said the little

  creature. “I suppose oo’re Sir Something, then?”

  “No,” I said, feeling more and more ashamed.

  “I haven’t got any title.”

  The fairy seemed to think that in that case I really wasn’t worth the trouble of talking to, for he quietly went on digging, and tearing the flowers to pieces.

  After a few minutes I tried again. “Please tell me what your name is.”

  “Bruno,” the little fellow answered, very readily. “Why didn’t oo say ‘please, before, anyway?”

  ‘That’s something like what we used to be taught in the nursery,, I thought to myself, looking back through the long years (about a hundred of them, since you ask the question), to the time when I was a little child. And here an idea came into my head, and I asked him, “Aren’t you one of the fairies that teach children to be good?”

  “Well, we have to do that sometimes,” said Bruno, “and a dreadful bother it is.” As he said this, he tore a heartsease in two, and trampled on the pieces.

  “What are you doing there, Bruno?” I said.

  “Spoiling Sylvie’s garden,” was all the answer Bruno would give at first. But, as he went on tearing up the flowers, he muttered to himself. “The nasty cross thing wouldn’t let me go and play this morning, said I must finish my lessons first – lessons, indeed! I’ll vex her finely, though!”

  “Oh, Bruno, you shouldn’t do that!” I cried. “Don’t you know that’s revenge? And revenge is a wicked, cruel, dangerous thing!”

  “River-edge?” said Bruno. “What a funny word! I suppose oo call it cruel and dangerous ,cause, if oo wented too far and tumbleded in, oo’d get drownded.”

  “No, not river-edge,” I explained, “revenge” (saying the word very slowly). But I couldn’t help thinking that Bruno’s explanation did very well for either word.

  “Oh!” said Bruno, opening his eyes very wide, but without trying to repeat the word.

  “Come! Try and pronounce it, Bruno!” I said, cheerfully. “Re-venge, re-venge.”

  But Bruno only tossed his little head, and said he couldn’t, that his mouth wasn’t the right shape for words of that kind.

  “Well, never mind, my little man!” I said. “Shall I help you with that job?”

  “Yes, please,” Bruno said, quite pacified. “Only I wiss I could think of somefin to vex her more. Oo don’t know how hard it is to make her angry!”

  “Now listen to me, Bruno, and I’ll teach you quite a splendid kind of revenge!”

  “Somefin that’ll vex her finely?” he asked with gleaming eyes.

  “Something that will vex her finely. First, we’ll get up all the weeds in her garden. See, there are a good many at this end quite hiding the flowers.”

  “But that won’t vex her!” said Bruno.

  “After that,” I said, without noticing the remark, “we’ll water this highest bed – up here. You see it’s getting quite dry and dusty.”

  Bruno looked at me inquisitively, but he said nothing this time.

  “Then after that,” I went on, “the walks want sweeping a bit, and I think you might cut down that tall nettle – it’s so close to the garden that it’s quite in the way—”

  “What is oo talking about?” Bruno impatiently interrupted me. “All that won’t vex her a bit!”

  “Won’t it?” I said, innocently. “Then, after that, suppose we put in some of these coloured pebbles – just to mark the divisions between the different kinds of flowers, you know. That’ll have a very pretty effect.”

  Bruno turned round and had another good stare at me. At last there came an odd little twinkle into his eyes, and he said, with quite a new meaning in his voice, “That’ll do nicely. Let’s put ,em in rows – all the red together, and all the blue together. “

  “That’ll do capitally,” I said, “and then – what kind of flowers does Sylvie like best?”

  Bruno had to put his thumb in his mouth and considered a little before he could answer. “Violets,” he said, at last.

  “There’s a beautiful bed of violets by the brook.”

  “Oh, let’s fetch ,em!” cried Bruno, giving a little skip into the air. “Here! Catch hold of my hand, and I’ll help oo along. The grass is rather thick down that way.”

  I couldn’t help laughing at his having so entirely forgotten what a big creature he was talking to. “No, not yet, Bruno,” I said, “we must consider what’s the right thing to do first. You see we’ve got quite a business before us.”

  “Yes, let’s consider,” said Bruno, putting his thumb into his mouth again, and sitting down upon a dead mouse.

  “What do you keep that mouse for?” I said. “You should either bury it, or else throw it into the brook.”

  “Why, it’s to measure with!” cried Bruno. “How ever would oo do a garden without one? We make each bed three mouses and a half long, and two mouses wide.”

  I stopped him, as he was dragging it off by the tail to show me how it was used, for I was half afraid the ‘eerie, feeling might go off before we had finished the garden, and in that case I should see no more of him or Sylvie. “I think the best way will be for you to weed the beds, while I sort out these pebbles, ready to mark the walks with.”

  “That’s it!” cried Bruno. “And I’ll tell oo about the caterpillars while we work.”

  “Ah, let’s hear about the caterpillars,” I said, as I drew the pebbles to
gether into a heap and began dividing them into colours.

  And Bruno went on in a low, rapid tone, more as if he were talking to himself. “Yesterday I saw two little caterpillars, when I was sitting by the brook, just where oo go into the wood. They were quite green, and they had yellow eyes, and they didn’t see me. And one of them had got a moth’s wing to carry – a great brown moth’s wing, oo know, all dry, with feathers. So he couldn’t want it to eat, I should think – perhaps he meant to make a cloak for the winter?

  “Well, and so he didn’t want the other caterpillar to see the moth’s wing, oo know – so what must he do but try to carry it with all his left legs, and he tried to walk on the other set. Of course he toppled over and if oo ever saw a caterpillar topple over, oo’d know it’s a welly serious thing, and not sit grinning like that – and I shan’t tell oo no more!”

  “Indeed and indeed, Bruno, I didn’t mean to grin. See, I’m quite grave again now.”

  But Bruno only folded his arms, and said “Don’t tell me. I see a little twinkle in one of oor eyes – just like the moon.”

  “Why do you think I’m like the moon, Bruno?” I asked.

  “Oor face is large and round like the moon,” Bruno answered, looking at me thoughtfully. “It doosn’t shine quite so bright – but it’s more cleaner.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at this. “You know I sometimes wash my face, Bruno. The moon never does.”

  “Oh, doosn’t she though!” cried Bruno, and he leant forwards and added in a solemn whisper, “The moon’s face gets dirtier and dirtier every night, till it’s black. And then, when it’s dirty all over,” (he passed his hand across his own rosy cheeks as he spoke) “then she washes it.”

  “Then it’s all clean again, isn’t it?”

  “Not all in a moment,” said Bruno. “What a deal of teaching oo wants! She washes it little by little – only she begins at the other edge, oo know.”

  By this time he was sitting quietly on the dead mouse with his arms folded, and the weeding wasn’t getting on a bit, so I had to say “Work first, pleasure afterwards – no more talking till that bed’s finished.”