The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  But, still, don’t tarry overlong, and keep to the road after. Thank you as ever for reading.

  Bettina von Arnim was the title of Elisabeth Katharina Ludovica Magdalena Brentano (1785–1859), a German writer, composer, and activist. She wrote in an exuberant style that matched her paradoxical personality. She was also a well-known artist and musician, fully encapsulating the spirit of a traditional German Romantic. Her most popular works are not her songs, poems, or short stories but edited versions of correspondence that she had with friends and family. An example would be Clemens Brentano’s Spring Garland (1844), which was a series of letters Arnim wrote to her brother that blended journalist-like reportage with fiction. Although her fiction wasn’t popular, she was close friends with the brothers Grimm as well as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German dramatist known for his impact on the Gothic genre. Arnim wrote “The Queen’s Son,” her first fairy tale, as a gift for her fiancé, Achim von Arnim, in 1808. It is reminiscent of oral narration and notes the discord between those with power and those without.

  The Queen’s Son

  Bettina von Arnim

  Translated by Gio Clairval

  THERE WAS ONCE A KING who ruled over a delightful land, and his burg stood on top of a high mountain, from which he could see far into the distance. Behind the burg there were beautiful gardens built for his pleasure, magnificent rivers, and thick woods full of wild animals. Lions and tigers lived there, wild cats perched in the trees, foxes and wolves roamed into the deepest parts of the forest, bears, white or with golden fur, often swam in pairs in the rivers and came into the King’s garden. Atop the trees nested preying eagles, vultures and falcons. This forest, which girdled the King’s realm, was seen by everyone as the animals’ own realm.

  Then the King took a wife, for her beauty and to have children. When the woman was blessed with child, the people rejoiced because their kingdom would have an heir to the throne, and they held the wife in high consideration. The day of the birth came and went and the King’s wife did not deliver the child. The King was sad because he believed that his spouse was ill and would die soon. Still, she continued to eat and drink like any healthy woman. Seven years passed, and the Queen’s belly remained swollen. The King, tired of her deformed body, grew angry. He believed that the woman must have sinned against God, since she was punished in such a harsh manner. Finally, he left his wife’s chambers, separated from her and sent her away from the castle, to live in a remote part of the burg.

  Here, slowly and sadly, she carried her heavy burden through the deserted gardens, and watched the wild beasts wandering out of the forest on the opposite bank of the river, to drink and wade in the water. In the springtime, when lions or tigers came with their young and fed them, she often wished in deep despair to be a ravening beast, to snatch her food in the woods after fierce fighting, although she would only fight to feed the little child in her belly. “Why, must I…” she said, “…drag myself across the gardens in great misery? I can see you recover every year from bearing your fruit, and I observe how you bring up your young, following your wild, unruly nature; but I, the Princess’s daughter, the Queen, shall not raise any of my noble progeny, I shall only be unhappy, and for that I hate my husband the King.”

  One day, as she sat in a solitary place under a palm, pain gripped her, and she gave birth to a son, who seemed to have the strength of a boy of seven years, for while he was being born, a she-bear had ventured across the river, and the little boy, barely freed from the womb, chased after the bear and clutched its fur. The animal swam back across the river, carrying him into the woods. Then the Queen cried in a powerful mother’s voice: “My son, my only born, is in the forest and is going to be eaten by wild beasts!”

  The King’s guards came racing across the river into the woods, with maces, with bow, with arrow, to retrieve their master’s son. But the animals, seeing the men invading their territory by force, galloped out of the forest onto the riverbank, ready to fight back. The bears sat upright and held out their paws, the lions bared their teeth and whipped their sides with their tails, the tigers with fiery glances ran up and down the shore, the wolves howled, the elephants ripped up the soil and hurled rocks into the water, the birds flew out of their nests, making the air heavy with wings, and gave terrible screeches, so that none of the bold knights dared to approach the river. So the armored men ran back to their abandoned Queen because they believed the King’s son was lost, but when they arrived near her, they found that she was giving birth, and indeed she gave birth to six sons, each of whom seemed happier and stronger than the other. Therefore no one grieved much for the lost child. The woman was brought with her six infants as a glorious mother before the King, who received her with honor and joy.

  Then the little ones grew up, and the Queen gave them nourishment and tended to them with great patience, but when evening fell, she laid them on their beds and went behind the castle to the spot where the she-bear had abducted her first child. There she walked by the water, hoping she might entice her son out of the bushes; for hours, she worried very little in her heart about the other children; she could only think of the lost one, and could not believe that he had perished, in which she resembled the shepherd who frets about the one lamb that is lost more than the whole flock, and believes this lamb was the best.

  She no longer dreads the wild beasts when she hears them howling at night, and when wild animals roam into the garden, she runs after them and asks about her child; but the beasts refuse to listen. Then she becomes impatient and desperate, she threatens and begs and grabs the bears by their furs, saying: “You have stolen my son from me!” But they do not care about her pleas and go about their business; they know who the woman is and do not hurt her. When she returns to the castle, she wipes her tears and lowers her face to gaze at the children, who are restless, and thus she hides her tears and thinks, “My poor children are restless and cold, I must warm them, and must give nourishment to calm them again.” All day long she conceals her sadness from the people around her and she avoids turning her face to the light, for she is ashamed to feel more love for the one lost child than for the other six. Still, she teaches her sons with great patience and wisdom during the day; but in the evening, when the children sleep, she searches the forest for her lost son. Then she addresses the great birds of prey that float high in the air, flying back and forth to bring food to their young, and she often addresses one of them: “Oh, you, winged animal, if only I could flutter in the air as you do, gazing down at the bushes, looking for my son! Oh, tell me, is he still alive, or have you seen him dead?”

  When the birds in the air squeal incomprehensibly, she thinks she understands a few words and brushes her hair to the side to hear better. She often believes that the birds were telling her that her child is still alive and will come to her soon. She struggles to interpret the screeching, she even speaks to the little buzzing bees and beetles that hover above the water. The insects swarm around her, droning, humming, each in its own manner, and then flit away.—Oh, poor Queen, no wild, inscrutable animal will give you advice: they do not know what a human complaint is. Because the people, they persecute animals and have no fellowship with them, instead taking their lives for their pelts or to eat their flesh, but no human being has ever turned to a wild beast for comfort.

  Many a noble animal complain about the freedom which human beings have deceitfully stolen from them: captive beasts are slaves, which is not in their nature, and they must eat dry fodder in payment of their services while in the forest they would nibble fresh foliage; moreover, masters put bridles around the beasts’ mouths, and why on earth should a free animal let itself be governed with the whip? Therefore, wild beasts do not trust human creatures and avoid them; but, when cornered, animals often snatch and maul people in horrible ways, just to get their freedom or their offspring back.

  Despite all this, the Queen’s other children were raised quite well, in
all wisdom. The boys showed very peaceful spirits and followed the noblest principles in every endeavor. The King could not decide to whom he should bequeath the crown, for one could not say who among his sons had been born earlier, or whether one or the other was less fit to rule. If he let them compete for the prize in any tournament, it often happened that everyone won the same prize, or that each of them excelled in his special way. Nor could the King love one more than the other, for everyone was handsome, and their nature compared to the feathers of a splendid bird in the sunlight: under a certain angle, the red or green color shimmer most beautifully. Under a different angle, other dazzling colors appear, or, if the bird soars or dips, moving its wings, then the colors change as fast as lightning, each as ravishing as the other, and one cannot determine which is best; as with the rainbow, where all the colors are gracefully gathered and together span the wide sky, each blending and growing out of the other. But the King did not have the right to divide his land or hand down the crown to more than one ruler; he therefore had a crown made of pure gold, large enough to embrace the heads of his six children, and he said to them, “As long as your minds remain as pure as gold, and that you kiss one another with all your love, and you are so united that you think as one—the way your heads are encompassed in this ring—I will be able to declare: my country has only one lord, and although this lord has many bodies, he has one mind only.”

  Then he announced a magnificent feast, during which his subjects would admire the new kings. All the nobles gathered at the court; a tall dais was erected in the open, and a golden throne, upon which the six sons of the King sat together, and he placed the crown on their heads. The quiet, lonely mother was in full adornment and splendor, in veils and overcoats embroidered with threads of gold—a sheer jubilation. She is called the Glorious Mother, now, and all instruments play a splendid music to praise her; but she hides her face behind the veils and cries bitter tears for her lost child. Then the King’s sons descend from their shared seat, fall on their knees and beg for their mother’s blessing. She rises and with her right hand gives the blessing to her children, but the left hand she holds upon her heart. She recalls her lost son.

  The wild animals, having heard the people exulting at the four corners of the country, had become restless; they swam across the river in droves. When the guards brought the gruesome news, the courtiers fled to their apartments, but the mother refused to leave because she was not afraid. The sons refused to leave their mother, as she did not allow her sons to lead her away for her protection. The hordes of beasts drew near, and in the midst of them a regal face could be seen looking straight up to the heavens, and it seemed a man’s face, only more handsome and noble. The young man rides on the backs of a lion and a tiger, gracefully jumping from one to the other. The mother, seeing him, says: “This is my son.” And with her courageous nature she walks up to him and lowers her head against his breast, sensing the heavy stone lodged in her heart unmoor and roll away. The animals know who the woman is, and do not harm her, but the youth had no human language, he could only express his will by signs. Therefore, he took the crown and turned it around his head seven times. With his strong hands he uprooted an olive tree from the ground and gave each of the six brothers one twig, keeping the trunk for himself—a manner for him to signify: “I am the one ruler! But you shall live in peace with me.” And he became king over animals and humans in spirit, if not in language.

  Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859) Grimm, also known as the brothers Grimm, are who most people think of when someone says “fairy tale.” Both brothers followed their father’s footsteps and attended law school, but neither felt that law was their calling. The duo turned to literary research and began collecting folk stories to share with their friends at get-togethers. After realizing how much they relished discovering these tales, the German academics traveled Europe, collecting folk music and literature to share with the world. Their two-volume work Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1812–1815), better known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales, led to a revolution in the study of folklore. “Hans-My-Hedgehog” (1815) made its way to the screen in 1987 when it was used as an episode in Jim Henson’s television series The Storyteller. Much like the other Grimm fairy tales, “Hans” features an unusual protagonist who teaches us all a lesson—while remaining a deeply and wonderfully strange story.

  Hans-My-Hedgehog

  Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a peasant who had money and land enough, but as rich as he was, there was still something missing from his happiness: He had no children with his wife. Often when he went to the city with the other peasants, they would mock him and ask him why he had no children. He finally became angry, and when he returned home, he said, “I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog.”

  Then his wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog and the bottom half a boy. When she saw the baby, she was horrified and said, “Now see what you have wished upon us!”

  The man said, “It cannot be helped. The boy must be baptized, but we cannot ask anyone to be his godfather.”

  The woman said, “And the only name that we can give him is Hans-My-Hedgehog.”

  When he was baptized, the pastor said, “Because of his quills he cannot be given an ordinary bed.” So they put a little straw behind the stove and laid him in it. And he could not drink from his mother, for he would have stuck her with his quills. He lay there behind the stove for eight years, and his father grew tired of him, and thought, “if only he would die.” But he did not die, but just lay there.

  Now it happened that there was a fair in the city, and the peasant wanted to go. He asked his wife what he should bring her.

  “A little meat, some bread rolls, and things for the household,” she said. Then he asked the servant girl, and she wanted a pair of slippers and some fancy stockings.

  Finally, he also said, “Hans-My-Hedgehog, what would you like?”

  “Father,” he said, “bring me some bagpipes.”

  When the peasant returned home he gave his wife what he had brought for her, meat and bread rolls. Then he gave the servant girl the slippers and fancy stockings. And finally he went behind the stove and gave Hans-My-Hedgehog the bagpipes.

  When Hans-My-Hedgehog had them, he said, “Father, go to the blacksmith’s and have my cock-rooster shod, then I will ride away and never again come back.” The father was happy to get rid of him, so he had his rooster shod, and when it was done, Hans-My-Hedgehog climbed on it and rode away. He took pigs and donkeys with him, to tend in the forest.

  In the forest the rooster flew into a tall tree with him. There he sat and watched over the donkeys and the pigs. He sat there for years, until finally the herd had grown large. His father knew nothing about him. While sitting in the tree, he played his bagpipes and made beautiful music.

  One day a king came by. He was lost and heard the music. He was amazed to hear it, and sent a servant to look around and see where it was coming from. He looked here and there but only saw a little animal sitting high in a tree. It looked like a rooster up there with a hedgehog sitting on it making the music.

  The king said to the servant that he should ask him why he was sitting there, and if he knew the way back to his kingdom. Then Hans-My-Hedgehog climbed down from the tree and told him that he would show him the way if the king would promise in writing to give him the first thing that greeted him at the royal court upon his arrival home.

  The king thought, “I can do that easily enough. Hans-My-Hedgehog cannot understand writing, and I can put down what I want to.”

  Then the king took pen and ink and wrote something, and after he had done so, Hans-My-Hedgehog showed him the way, and he arrived safely at home. His daughter saw him coming from afar, and was so overjoyed that she ran to meet him and kissed him. He thought about Hans-My-Hedgehog and told her what had happened, that he was supposed to have promised the first thing that greete
d him to a strange animal that rode a rooster and made beautiful music. But instead he had written that this would not happen, for Hans-My-Hedgehog could not read. The princess was happy about this, and said that it was a good thing, for she would not have gone with him in any event.

  Hans-My-Hedgehog tended the donkeys and pigs, was of good cheer, and sat in the tree blowing on his bagpipes.

  Now it happened that another king came this way with his servants and messengers. He too got lost and did not know the way back home because the forest was so large. He too heard the beautiful music from afar, and asked one of his messengers to go and see what it was and where it was coming from. The messenger ran to the tree where he saw Hans-My-Hedgehog astride the cock-rooster. The messenger asked him what he was doing up there.

  “I am tending my donkeys and pigs. What is it that you want?” replied Hans-My-Hedgehog.

  The messenger said that they were lost and could not find their way back to their kingdom, and asked him if he could not show them the way.

  Then Hans-My-Hedgehog climbed down from the tree with his rooster and told the old king that he would show him the way if he would give him the thing that he first met at home before the royal castle.

  The king said yes and signed a promise to Hans-My-Hedgehog.

  When that was done, Hans-My-Hedgehog rode ahead on his rooster showing them the way, and the king safely reached his kingdom. When the king arrived at his court there was great joy. Now he had an only daughter who was very beautiful. She ran out to him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and was ever so happy that her old father had returned.