And the snail spat.
“I can explain and defend the choosing of the winners—my votes, in any case, were justly cast,” said the old pole that the surveyor had dug down to mark the boundary between two farms; the pole had been a member of the committee. “I believe in order, regularity, and calculation. Seven times before have I had the honor of being a member of the committee that has awarded the prizes, but this is the first time that it has been done according to my system. Each time I have looked for something solid, a certain fixed point to start from; therefore I have always begun with the beginning of the alphabet for the first prize, and from the end for the second prize. Now you will notice that the eighth letter after A is H, and that is why I voted for the hare for the first prize. Now the eighth letter, counting from the end of the alphabet, is S and that is why I voted that the snail should receive the second prize. Next time, I ought to be given the first prize and R the second. There must always be order in everything, one has to know where one stands!”
“I would have voted for myself if I hadn’t been on the committee,” said the mule, who had been one of the judges. “Mere speed is not the only consideration; how much one can pull is of importance too. But I didn’t let that influence my judgment, nor did I pay any particular attention to how cleverly the hare behaves in flight, how he jumps first to one side, then to the other in order to fool his pursuer. No, I was particularly concerned about another point, which should not be passed over lightly: beauty! It was this I took into consideration. I saw the hare’s lovely long ears, they were a pleasure to look at! They reminded me of my own when I was young; and therefore I cast my vote for the hare!”
“Hush,” said the fly, “I don’t want to make a speech, I just want to say something. I have run faster than many a hare. The other day I broke the hind leg of one of them. I was sitting on the front of the engine that pulls the train. I often travel by rail, it is the best place I know of to contemplate one’s own speed. A young hare was running in front, I am sure it wasn’t aware that I was there. In the end, it either had to get off the track or be run over. It didn’t make it, my engine drove over its leg. I was there. The hare stayed behind and I rushed on. If that is not called winning a race, I would like to know what is. But I don’t need any prize.”
“I think,” began the wild rose, but it didn’t say anything out loud, for that was against its nature, although in this case it would have been a good thing if it had. “I think the sunbeam should have received the first prize, and the second too. In no time at all it flies the long way from the sun down to us and yet arrives with strength enough left to waken all of nature. It has a beauty within it that makes us roses blush and gives us our scent. The honorable committee seem not to have noticed the sunbeam at all. If I were a sunbeam I would give them all a sunstroke; but that would only make them mad, and mad they are already. I shan’t mention it,” thought the wild rose. “Peace in the forest! How lovely it is to bloom, to spread one’s fragrance, please those that love one, and to live in legend and song. The sunbeam will survive us all.”
“What was the first prize?” asked the earthworm who, having overslept, had just arrived.
“Free admittance to a cabbage garden,” answered the mule. “I was the one that suggested the prize. Since the hare was to win it, I—as a rational member of the committee—decided it might as well be something useful. Now the hare is provided for. The snail got permission to sit on a stone fence and bask in the sunshine, besides being given the first permanent appointment as a judge for all future races. It is always a good thing to have an expert on the committee. I must say that I am expecting great things in the future, since we have had such a promising start.”
88
The Bell Deep
“Ding, dong! Ding, dong!”
The ringing comes from the bell deep in Odense River.
What river is that?
Don’t you know? Well, all the children in the town of Odense do. They may not be able to tell you where it comes from—its source, that is too far away—but the part from the lock, past the gardens and down to the water mill, where the wooden bridges are, all the children have explored.
Little yellow water lilies grow in the water—the ones that are called “river buttons.” Along the shore there are reeds with featherlike tufts and sturdy, big, black bulrushes. Where the river passes through the “monk’s meadow” and the field on which linen used to be laid out to bleach, the bank of the river is lined with willow trees; they are so old and crooked that they lean far out over the water. Nearer the town there are gardens on both sides of the river. No two of these are alike. Some of the plots are all but covered with flowers and have pretty little bowers that look like big dollhouses. Other gardens are more practical, and here cabbages grow in straight lines like soldiers on parade. Some places the river is so deep, an oar can’t reach the bottom. The deepest place is near where the cloister used to be; here the old man of the river lives. During the day when the sun rays shine down through the water, he sleeps. But at night, especially when the moon is full, he sometimes shows himself. He is ancient. Grandmother says that she heard about him from her grandmother. He is a very lonesome old man and has no one to talk to except an old church bell. The bell once hung in the tower of St. Alban’s Church, and of that building not a trace is left today.
“Ding dong! Ding, dong!” pealed the bell one evening when the church and the tower were still standing. Just as the sun set and the bell was at the highest point in its swing, it tore itself loose and flew out of the tower and through the air. In the light from the setting sun it looked fiery red.
“Ding dong! Ding, dong! I am going to bed,” tolled the bell, and disappeared in the river at its very deepest point. And that is how that place got its name: the bell deep. But the bell was mistaken about one thing, it wasn’t going to get much sleep down there. The old man of the river likes to ring the bell. Sometimes he rings it so loudly that it can be heard through the water, up on the shore. Some people say that this is a warning that someone is about to die, but that is not true. It rings in order to tell the river man stories; since the bell came, he is not so alone any more.
What kind of stories can the old bell tell? It is terribly old. It existed long before Grandmother’s grandmother was born, although it is a child compared to the old man of the river, for he is as ancient as the river itself. He is a quite funny old man. His pants are made of eelskins, his jacket of fish scales, and it is buttoned with the little yellow water lilies. His hair is filled with reeds and his long beard with duckweed, which is not really very attractive.
It would take more than a year to tell all of the stories the bell knows. Some of them are short, others are long, and the bell tells them as it likes—often it repeats itself. All the stories are about earlier times: the dark and cruel ages.
“There used to be a monk who often climbed up in the tower of the church. He was young and handsome, but also more pensive than the other monks. He would look across the river—which was broader then—toward the cloister on the other side. He used to come in the evening just as the nuns were lighting the candles in their cells; he knew which one was hers. He had known ‘her’ well once.
“And when he thought about those days, his heart would beat like a bell: Ding, dong!”
Yes, this was the manner in which the bell used to talk.
“I remember the bishop’s fool, he used to sit right under me while I was pealing. He didn’t seem to worry, although I might have hit him, and if I had, I would have crushed his skull. He would play with two little sticks and sing or maybe, one should say, shout:
“ ‘Here I can sing loudly what I do not dare to whisper below. I can sing about all that is hidden behind lock and key, where it is cold and wet and the rats eat the living. No one knows it. No one hears it! Not even now, for the bells are tolling so loud! Ding! Dong!’
“Oh yes, he was mad, that fool!”
Here is another story: “There was a k
ing called Knud. The monks and the bishops bowed to him, but when he taxed the peasants of Jutland too heavily and spoke ill of them, they took weapons in hand and drove him out. They hunted him down as though he were a stag. He fled to the church and locked its doors. Outside a great mob gathered—I heard all about it, for the crows, the ravens, and the jackdaws were so frightened from the noise of the screaming and the shouting that they sought refuge with me, up in the bell tower. Although the jackdaw was frightened, it was as nosy as ever, and it flew down to look through the church windows. King Knud lay in front of the altar praying, and his two brothers, Erik and Benedict, stood near him with their drawn swords, ready to defend him. But the king’s servant, Blake, had betrayed his master, and the crowd outside knew where the king was. Soon stones flew through the windows; the king and his men were killed. There were screams and cries of birds and men, and I shouted too. I sang and I rang. Ding, dong! Ding, dong!
“A church bell is hung up high so it can see far and wide. The birds visit it and the bell understands their language. But the bell’s best friend is the wind who knows everything. For the wind and the air are brothers, and all that is living the air surrounds; it can even come inside our lungs. No word is spoken, no sigh is made, without the air having heard it. The wind tells what the air knows, and the church bells understand and ring it out for the whole world to know: Ding, dong! Ding, dong!
“But I heard too much, I learned too much, and my knowledge became too great, too heavy a weight to carry. The beam that I was fastened to broke, and I flew out into the air and fell down into the Odense River, into the deep hole where the river man lives. He is terribly lonesome; and so I tell him all the stories I know: Ding, dong! Ding, dong!”
This is the story Grandmother heard when she listened to the sound coming from the bell deep in Odense River.
But the schoolteacher does not agree with her. He says, “There is no bell down in the river, and even if there was, it couldn’t ring under water. And there is no old man of the river, either that is only an old wives’ tale!” The schoolteacher also claims that, when the church bells peal so merrily, it is not the bells as much as the air that rings, for without the air the sound would not carry. But that is what Grandmother said the bell had told her; and if Grandmother and the schoolteacher agree, then I am sure that it is true. Be careful, be cautious, take good care of yourself. That is the motto of both of them.
The air knows everything! It is around us and inside us. It tells about our deeds and thoughts; its song can be heard farther than the pealing of the bell in Odense River—the one that is living with the old river man. The air delivers its message far up in the heavens. It exists eternally, or at least till the bells of paradise will ring: “Ding, dong! Ding, dong!”
89
The Evil King
A legend
There once lived an evil and arrogant king whose ambition was to conquer all the countries of the world and make every man alive fear his name. With sword and fire he scourged the world; his soldiers tramped down the grain and set fire to the farms. Even the apple trees in the gardens did not escape. They stood black and leafless, and their fruits hung roasted on the branches. Many a poor mother, carrying her naked babe in her arms, would try to hide behind the crumbling, soot-smeared walls that had once been her home. If the soldiers found her and her child, then they would laugh like fiends: evil spirits from hell itself could not have behaved worse. But the king found that everything was going just as he wanted it to. Day by day his power increased and his name became more fearful to all. Luck seemed to smile on whatever he did. The plunder from the conquered towns, their gold and treasures, he had brought to his own capital, and soon it was rich beyond belief. Now he built beautiful palaces, churches, and arcades, and everyone who saw them exclaimed, “Oh, what a great king!” None gave a thought to the suffering he had caused the world, none heard the sighs and cries of lament that came from the ruins of the towns he had destroyed.
The king looked at his golden treasures and at his palaces and he thought as the man in the crowd did: “What a great king!” But he also thought, “I must have even more, more! No power must be mentioned as equal to mine!” And the king made wars upon all his neighbors and he conquered them all. When the king drove through the streets of his city, the vanquished kings were bound to his carriage with golden chains. In the evening, when he dined, they had to lie like dogs at his and his courtiers’ feet, and they would throw them scraps from their table.
The king had statues of himself placed on all the squares of the cities and in the royal castles. He wanted them in the churches too, up at the altar, but the priests refused, saying, “King, you are great, but God is greater, we do not dare!”
“Well,” said the evil king, “then I must conquer God too.”
In foolish arrogance he had an artificial ship built with which he could sail through the air. It was as colorful as a peacock’s tail and seemed to contain a thousand eyes. But every eye was the muzzle of a gun. The king himself sat in the middle of the ship and when he pressed a button a thousand bullets would fly and the guns would then reload themselves. A hundred strong eagles were harnessed to the ship and he flew up toward the sun. The earth was below him. At first, with its forests and mountains, it looked like a plowed field, where the grass peeped up through the overturned turf. Later, as he flew higher, it appeared like a flat map; until, at last, it was hidden by clouds and mist.
The eagles flew higher and higher. At last God sent one of his countless angels, and the evil king fired a thousand bullets at him. Like hailstones hitting the earth, the bullets sprang in all directions when they touched the angel’s shining wings. One, only one, drop of blood dripped from the white feathers of his wings. That drop fell on the ship of the evil king. It burned itself into it and it was as heavy as a thousand hundredweights of lead. The ship fell down toward the earth so fast that the strong wings of the eagles were broken. The wind rushed past the king’s head, and the great clouds around him, which had been formed by the smoke from the burning cities he had destroyed, took on the strangest menacing shapes. One was like a gigantic crab reaching out its great pincers toward him, and another looked like a dragon. When at last his ship came to rest in the top of some trees, he lay half dead among the ruins.
“I will conquer God!” he screamed. “I have sworn to do it and I shall!”
For seven years he set all his workmen to building ships that could fly through the air; and he ordered his blacksmith to form thunderbolts of the strongest steel, with which he planned to destroy the fortress of God’s heaven. Then, from all the countries he ruled, he gathered an army greater than any seen before. When they stood in formation, shoulder to shoulder, they covered many square miles.
They all embarked in the marvelously constructed airships; and the king himself was ready to enter his, when God let a swarm of mosquitoes loose. Like a little cloud, they flew around the king and stung his face and hands. In fury, he drew his sword and slashed the air but harmed not a single insect. He ordered that costly blankets be brought and that he be wrapped in them, so that no mosquito could reach him. His command was obeyed, but one mosquito had hidden in the innermost blanket; it crept into the king’s ear and stung him there. The sting burned like fire and the poison entered his brain. He threw off the blankets and tore his clothes in rage from the pain. Naked and screaming, he danced in front of his brutish soldiers. They laughed and mocked the mad king who would conquer God and was himself vanquished by one tiny mosquito.
90
What the Wind Told About Valdemar Daae and His Daughters
When the wind runs across the fields, then the grass ripples like water and the fields of grain form waves like the sea. That is the dance of the wind. But try to listen to it when it sings. Its songs sound differently according to where you hear them, whether you are in a forest or listening when the wind makes its way through cracks and crevices in a wall. Look up and watch how the wind is chasing the clouds, as
if they were a flock of sheep. Listen as it howls through the open gates; it thinks it is the night watchman blowing a horn. Now it is coming down the chimney; the fire in the fireplace burns higher and sparks fly. The light from the flames illuminates the whole room for a minute. It is so nice and warm and cozy in here, just right for listening. Let the wind tell us what story it wants to, it knows so many more tales and stories than we do. “Whoo … whoo … All will pass.… Whoo … whoo!” that is the chorus of all its songs.
“On the shores of the Great Belt lies an old castle with red brick walls,” began the wind. “I know every stone in the building. Most of them had been used before in Marsk Stig’s castle, but that was torn down by order of the king. Its great walls were destroyed but the bricks were saved; they could become new walls in another place. They were used to build Borreby Castle and that is still standing.
“I have seen and known all the noble gentlemen and ladies who have lived there; all the different families who have claimed it as theirs. But I will tell only about one of them: Valdemar Daae and his daughters.
“He was proud, Valdemar Daae, royal blood flowed in his veins. He knew how to do more than hunt deer and empty a tankard of beer. He could take care of himself, as he said.
“His wife’s clothes were embroidered with gold. She walked proudly and stiffly across the polished tile floors of the castle. Tapestries hung on the walls and the furniture was carved and inlaid with rosewood. Much silver and gold had she brought to her husband’s house. In the cellar was German beer and in the stable stood handsome black horses. Oh, everything was fine and rich in Borreby Castle, while it lasted. Three children they had, three young noble maidens: Ida, Johanne, and Anna Dorthea. I remember their names still.
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 67