by Andrew Lang
‘Bog,’ he cried, to the little man on the crow, who had ridden to meet him. ‘Hasten to the palace and inform the Princess Abeille that Youri de Blanchelande, for seven years a captive in the kingdom of the Undines, has now returned to the castle of Clarides.’
The first person whom Youri met as he came out of the mountain was the tailor who had made all his clothes from the time that he came to live at the castle. Of this old friend, who was nearly beside himself with joy at the sight of the little master, lost for so many years, the count begged for news of his foster-mother and Abeille.
‘Alas! my lord, where can you have been that you do not know that the Princess Abeille was carried off by the gnomes on the very day that you disappeared yourself? At least, so we guess. Ah! that day has left many a mark on our duchess! Yet she is not without a gleam of hope that her daughter is living yet, for every night the poor mother is visited by a dream which tells her all that the princess is doing.’
The good man went on to tell of all the changes that seven years had brought about in the village, but Youri heard nothing that he said, for his mind was busy with thoughts of Abeille.
At length he roused himself, and ashamed of his delay, he hastened to the chamber of the duchess, who held him in her arms as if she would never let him go. By-and-by, however, when she became calmer, he began to question her about Abeille, and how best to deliver her from the power of the gnomes. The duchess then told him that she had sent out men in all directions to look for the children directly they were found to be missing, and that one of them had noticed a troop of little men far away on the mountains, evidently carrying a litter. He was hastening after them, when, at his feet, he beheld a tiny satin slipper, which he stooped to pick up. But as he did so a dozen of the gnomes had swarmed upon him like flies, and beat him about the head till he dropped the slipper, which they took away with them, leaving the poor man dizzy with pain. When he recovered his senses the group on the mountain had disappeared.
That night, when everyone was asleep, Youri and his old servant Francur, stole softly down into the armoury, and dressed themselves in light suits of chain armour, with helmets and short swords, all complete. Then they mounted two horses that Francur had tied up in the forest, and set forth for the kingdom of the gnomes. At the end of an hour’s hard riding, they came to the cavern which Francur had heard from childhood led into the centre of the earth. Here they dismounted, and entered cautiously, expecting to find darkness as thick as what they had left outside. But they had only gone a few steps when they were nearly blinded by a sudden blaze of light, which seemed to proceed from a sort of portcullis door, which barred the way in front of them.
‘Who are you?’ asked a voice. And the count answered:
‘Youri de Blanchelande, who has come to rescue Abeille des Clarides.’ And at these words the gate slowly swung open, and closed behind the two strangers.
Youri listened to the clang with a spasm of fear in his heart; then the desperate position he was in gave him courage. There was no retreat for him now, and in front was drawn up a large force of gnomes, whose arrows were falling like hail about him. He raised his shield to ward them off, and as he did so his eyes fell on a little man standing on a rock above the rest, with a crown on his head and a royal mantle on his shoulders. In an instant Youri had flung away his shield and sprung forward, regardless of the arrows that still fell about him.
‘Oh, is it you, is it really you, my deliverer? And is it your subjects who hold as a captive Abeille whom I love?’
‘I am King Loc,’ was the answer. And the figure with the long beard bent his eyes kindly on the eager youth. ‘If Abeille has lived with us all these years, for many of them she was quite happy. But the gnomes, of whom you think so little, are a just people, and they will not keep her against her will. Beg the princess to be good enough to come hither,’ he added, turning to Rug.
Amidst a dead silence Abeille entered the vast space and looked around her. At first she saw nothing but a vast host of gnomes perched on the walls and crowding on the floor of the big hall. Then her eyes met those of Youri, and with a cry that came from her heart she darted towards him, and threw herself on his breast.
‘Abeille,’ said the king, when he had watched her for a moment, with a look of pain on his face, ‘is this the man that you wish to marry?’
‘Yes, Little King Loc, this is he and nobody else! And see how I can laugh now, and how happy I am!’ And with that she began to cry.
‘Hush, Abeille! there must be no tears to-day,’ said Youri, gently stroking her hair. ‘Come, dry your eyes, and thank King Loc, who rescued me from the cage in the realm of the Undines.’
As Youri spoke Abeille lifted her head, and a great light came into her face. At last she understood.
‘You did that for me?’ she whispered. ‘Ah, Little King Loc-!’
So, loaded with presents, and followed by regrets, Abeille went home. In a few days the marriage took place; but however happy she was, and however busy she might be, never a month passed by without a visit from Abeille to her friends in the kingdom of the gnomes.
(Adapted and shortened from the story of Abeille , by M. Anatole France.)
‘ A LONG-BOW STORY ’
One day a bunniah,[1] or banker, was walking along a country road when he overtook a farmer going in the same direction. Now the bunniah was very grasping, like most of his class, and was lamenting that he had had no chance of making any money that day; but at the sight of the man in front he brightened up wonderfully.
‘That is a piece of luck,’ he said to himself. ‘Let me see if this farmer is not good for something’; and he hastened his steps.
After they had bid one another good day very politely, the bunniah said to the farmer:
‘I was just thinking how dull I felt, when I beheld you, but since we are going the same way, I shall find the road quite short in such agreeable company.’
‘With all my heart,’ replied the farmer; ‘but what shall we talk about? A city man like you will not care to hear about cattle and crops.’
‘Oh,’ said the bunniah, ‘I’ll tell you what we will do. We will each tell the other the wildest tale we can imagine, and he who first throws doubt on the other’s story shall pay him a hundred rupees.’
To this the farmer agreed, and begged the bunniah to begin, as he was the bigger man of the two; and privately he made up his mind that, however improbable it might be, nothing should induce him to hint that he did not believe in the bunniah’s tale. Thus politely pressed the great man started:
‘I was going along this road one day, when I met a merchant travelling with a great train of camels laden with merchandise-’
‘Very likely,’ murmured the farmer; ‘I’ve seen that kind of thing myself.’
‘No less than one hundred and one camels,’ continued the bunniah, ‘all tied together by their nose strings-nose to tail-and stretching along the road for almost half a mile-’
‘Well?’ said the farmer.
‘Well, a kite swooped down on the foremost camel and bore him off, struggling, into the air, and by reason of them all being tied together the other hundred camels had to follow-’
‘Amazing, the strength of that kite!’ said the farmer. ‘But-well-yes, doubtless; yes-well-one hundred and one camels-and what did he do with them?’
‘You doubt it?’ demanded the bunniah.
‘Not a bit!’ said the farmer heartily.
‘Well,’ continued the bunniah, ‘it happened that the princess of a neighbouring kingdom was sitting in her private garden, having her hair combed by her maid, and she was looking upward, with her head thrown back, whilst the maid tugged away at the comb, when that wretched kite, with its prey, went soaring overhead; and, as luck would have it, the camels gave an extra kick just then, the kite lost his hold, and the whole hundred and one camels dropped right into the princess’s left eye!’
‘Poor thing!’ said the farmer; ‘it’s so painful having anything in one’s eye.’
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br /> ‘Well,’ said the bunniah, who was now warming to his task, ‘the princess shook her head, and sprang up, clapping her hand on her eye. “Oh dear!” she cried, “I’ve got something in my eye, and how it does smart!”’
‘It always does,’ observed the farmer, ‘perfectly true. Well, what did the poor thing do?’
‘At the sound of her cries, the maid came running to her assistance. “Let me look,” said she; and with that she gave the princess’s eyelid a twitch, and out came a camel, which the maid put in her pocket-’ (‘Ah!’ grunted the farmer)-‘and then she just twisted up the corner of her headcloth and fished a hundred more of them out of the princess’s eye, and popped them all into her pocket with the other.’
Here the bunniah gasped as one who is out of breath, but the farmer looked at him slowly. ‘Well?’ said he.
‘I can’t think of anything more now,’ replied the bunniah. ‘Besides, that is the end; what do you say to it?’
‘Wonderful,’ replied the farmer, ‘and no doubt perfectly true!’
‘Well, it is your turn,’ said the bunniah. ‘I am so anxious to hear your story. I am sure it will be very interesting.’
‘Yes, I think it will,’ answered the farmer, and he began:
‘My father was a very prosperous man. Five cows he had, and three yoke of oxen, and half a dozen buffaloes, and goats in abundance; but of all his possessions the thing he loved best was a mare. A well bred mare she was-oh, a very fine mare!’
‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted the bunniah, ‘get on!’
‘I’m getting on,’ said the farmer, ‘don’t you hurry me! Well, one day, as ill-luck would have it, he rode that mare to market with a torn saddle, which galled her so, that when they got home she had a sore on her back as big as the palm of your hand.’
‘Yes,’ said the bunniah impatiently, ‘what next?’
‘It was June,’ said the farmer, ‘and you know how, in June, the air is full of dust-storms with rain at times? Well, the poor beast got dust in that wound, and what’s more, with the dust some grains of wheat, and, what with the dust and the heat and the wet, that wheat sprouted and began to grow!’
‘Wheat does when it gets a fair chance,’ said the bunniah.
‘Yes; and the next thing we knew was that there was a crop of wheat on that horse’s back as big as anything you ever saw in a hundred-acre field, and we had to hire twenty men to reap it!’
‘One generally has to hire extra hands for reaping,’ said the bunniah.
‘And we got four hundred maunds of wheat off that mare’s back!’ continued the farmer.
‘A good crop!’ murmured the bunniah.
‘And your father,’ said the farmer, ‘a poor wretch, with hardly enough to keep body and soul together-(the bunniah snorted, but was silent)-came to my father, and he said, putting his hands together as humble as could be-’
The bunniah here flashed a furious glance at his companion, but bit his lips and held his peace.
‘“I haven’t tasted food for a week. Oh! great master, let me have the loan of sixteen maunds of wheat from your store, and I will repay you.”’
‘“Certainly, neighbour,” answered my father; “take what you need, and repay it as you can.”’
‘Well?’ demanded the bunniah with fury in his eye.
‘Well, he took the wheat away with him,’ replied the farmer; ‘but he never repaid it, and it’s a debt to this day. Sometimes I wonder whether I shall not go to law about it.’
Then the bunniah began running his thumb quickly up and down the fingers of his right hand, and his lips moved in quick calculation.
‘What is the matter?’ asked the farmer.
‘The wheat is the cheaper; I’ll pay you for the wheat,’ said the bunniah, with the calmness of despair, as he remembered that by his own arrangement he was bound to give the farmer a hundred rupees.
And to this day they say in those parts, when a man owes a debt: ‘Give me the money; or, if not that, give me at least the wheat.’
(This is from oral tradition.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Grain merchant and banker, and generally a very greedy man.
JACKAL OR TIGER?
One hot night, in Hindustan, a king and queen lay awake in the palace in the midst of the city. Every now and then a faint air blew through the lattice, and they hoped they were going to sleep, but they never did. Presently they became more broad awake than ever at the sound of a howl outside the palace.
‘Listen to that tiger!’ remarked the king.
‘Tiger?’ replied the queen. ‘How should there be a tiger inside the city? It was only a jackal.’
‘I tell you it was a tiger,’ said the king.
‘And I tell you that you were dreaming if you thought it was anything but a jackal,’ answered the queen.
‘I say it was a tiger,’ cried the king; ‘don’t contradict me.’
‘Nonsense!’ snapped the queen. ‘It was a jackal.’ And the dispute waxed so warm that the king said at last:
‘Very well, we’ll call the guard and ask; and if it was a jackal I’ll leave this kingdom to you and go away; and if it was a tiger then you shall go, and I will marry a new wife.’
‘As you like,’ answered the queen, ‘there isn’t any doubt which it was.’
So the king called the two soldiers who were on guard outside and put the question to them. But, whilst the dispute was going on, the king and queen had got so excited and talked so loud that the guards had heard nearly all they said, and one man observed to the other:
‘Mind you declare that the king is right. It certainly was a jackal, but, if we say so, the king will probably not keep his word about going away, and we shall get into trouble, so we had better take his side.’
To this the other agreed; therefore, when the king asked them what animal they had seen, both the guards said it was certainly a tiger, and that the king was right of course, as he always was. The king made no remark, but sent for a palanquin, and ordered the queen to be placed in it, bidding the four bearers of the palanquin to take her a long way off into the forest and there leave her. In spite of her tears, she was forced to obey, and away the bearers went for three days and three nights until they came to a dense wood. There they set down the palanquin with the queen in it, and started home again.
Now the queen thought to herself that the king could not mean to send her away for good, and that as soon as he had got over his fit of temper he would summon her back; so she stayed quite still for a long time, listening with all her ears for approaching footsteps, but heard none. After a while she grew nervous, for she was all alone, and put her head out of the palanquin and looked about her. Day was just breaking, and birds and insects were beginning to stir; the leaves rustled in a warm breeze; but, although the queen’s eyes wandered in all directions, there was no sign of any human being. Then her spirit gave way, and she began to cry.
It so happened that close to the spot where the queen’s palanquin had been set down, there dwelt a man who had a tiny farm in the midst of the forest, where he and his wife lived alone far from any neighbours. As it was hot weather the farmer had been sleeping on the flat roof of his house, but was awakened by the sound of weeping. He jumped up and ran downstairs as fast as he could, and into the forest towards the place the sound came from, and there he found the palanquin.
‘Oh, poor soul that weeps,’ cried the farmer, standing a little way off, ‘who are you?’ At this salutation from a stranger the queen grew silent, dreading she knew not what.
‘Oh, you that weep,’ repeated the farmer, ‘fear not to speak to me, for you are to me as a daughter. Tell me, who are you?’
His voice was so kind that the queen gathered up her courage and spoke. And when she had told her story, the farmer called his wife, who led her to their house, and gave her food to eat, and a bed to lie on. And in the farm, a few days later, a little prince was born, and by his mother’s wish named Ameer Ali.
Years passed w
ithout a sign from the king. His wife might have been dead for all he seemed to care, though the queen still lived with the farmer, and the little prince had by this time grown up into a strong, handsome, and healthy youth. Out in the forest they seemed far from the world; very few ever came near them, and the prince was continually begging his mother and the farmer to be allowed to go away and seek adventures and to make his own living. But she and the wise farmer always counselled him to wait, until, at last, when he was eighteen years of age, they had not the heart to forbid him any longer. So he started off one early morning, with a sword by his side, a big brass pot to hold water, a few pieces of silver, and a galail[2] or two-stringed bow in his hand, with which to shoot birds as he travelled.
Many a weary mile he tramped day after day, until, one morning, he saw before him just such a forest as that in which he had been born and bred, and he stepped joyfully into it, like one who goes to meet an old friend. Presently, as he made his way through a thicket, he saw a pigeon which he thought would make a good dinner, so he fired a pellet at it from his galail, but missed the pigeon which fluttered away with a startled clatter. At the same instant he heard a great clamour from beyond the thicket, and, on reaching the spot, he found an ugly old woman streaming wet and crying loudly as she lifted from her head an earthen vessel with a hole in it from which the water was pouring. When she saw the prince with his galail in his hand, she called out:
‘Oh, wretched one! why must you choose an old woman like me to play your pranks upon? Where am I to get a fresh pitcher instead of this one that you have broken with your foolish tricks? And how am I to go so far for water twice when one journey wearies me?’
‘But, mother,’ replied the prince, ‘I played no trick upon you! I did but shoot at a pigeon that should have served me for dinner, and as my pellet missed it, it must have broken your pitcher. But, in exchange, you shall have my brass pot, and that will not break easily; and as for getting water, tell me where to find it, and I’ll fetch it while you dry your garments in the sun, and carry it whither you will.’