by Maria Tatar
“Oh!” said she, “your name is Sweet-as-a-honeycomb.”
“Jump on my back,” said he, “and I’ll take you home.” So he trotted away with her on his back for forty miles, when they came to a stile.
“And what do you call me?” said he, before they got over the stile.
Thinking that she was safe on her way, the girl said, “A great, foul, small-tooth dog.” But when she said this, he did not jump over the stile, but turned right round about at once, and galloped back to his own house with the girl on his back.
Another week went by, and again the girl wept so bitterly that the dog promised to take her to her father’s house. So the girl got on the dog’s back again, and they reached the first stile as before, and then the dog stopped and said, “And what do you call me?”
“Sweet-as-a-honeycomb,” she replied.
So the dog leaped over the stile, and they went on for twenty miles until they came to another stile.
“And what do you call me?” said the dog, with a wag of his tail.
She was thinking more of her own father and her own home than of the dog, so she answered, “A great, foul, small-tooth dog.”
Then the dog was in a great rage, and he turned right round about and galloped back to his own house as before. After she had cried for another week, the dog promised again to take her back to her father’s house. So she mounted upon his back once more, and when they got to the first stile, the dog said, “And what do you call me?”
“Sweet-as-a-honeycomb,” she said.
So the dog jumped over the stile, and away they went—for now the girl made up her mind to say the most loving things she could think of—until they reached her father’s house.
When they got to the door of the merchant’s house, the dog said, “And what do you call me?”
Just at that moment the girl forgot the loving things that she meant to say, and began, “A great . . .” but the dog began to turn, and she got fast hold of the door-latch, and was going to say “foul,” when she saw how grieved the dog looked and remembered how good and patient he had been with her, so she said, “Sweeter-than-a-honeycomb.”
When she had said this she thought the dog would have been content and have galloped away, but instead of that he suddenly stood up on his hind legs, and with his fore legs he pulled off his dog’s head, and tossed it high in the air. His hairy coat dropped off, and there stood the handsomest young man in the world, with the finest and smallest teeth you ever saw.
Of course they were married, and lived together happily.
THE QUEEN OF THE PIGEONS
South Africa
Ethel McPherson, who collected South African fairy tales, relied on print sources compiled by British and French missionaries in Africa for her child-friendly version of a Zulu tale. McPherson felt sure that the pigeons in the story were symbolic horsemen, who “fly” through the air. Humor, charm, romance, and poetry: these were features McPherson saw as “characteristic” of African lore. And yet this particular tale turns on the tragedy of separation and loss, as well as on the use of trickery and deceit to find a way back home.
Once there was a beautiful young woman who was as fair as a star. She was the delight of the village, and her mother loved her more than anything in the world.
One day when the men of the village had left for the hunt and the women were working in the fields, the maiden, leaving her young companions in the kraal, went out on to the veld to gather some soft grass. She sat down to do her work when, suddenly, a flock of gray wood pigeons came flying out from the west and began to hover over her. Struck by her beauty, they lifted her up from the ground and carried her off across the fields where the women were doing their hoeing. Weeping and wailing, she called out, “Mother, help me, the pigeon-folk are taking me away!”
Her mother looked up from her work, and, seeing her child up above her, she stretched out her arms and tried to reach her, but the pigeons flew up over her head, and then they swooped down again until the girl was almost in her grasp. Then the birds quickly flew up again, mocking her, and off they went into the distance.
The birds traveled in the direction of the setting sun, and the mother, in tears, followed the pigeons, begging them to bring back her child. But they paid no attention to her. When darkness fell, they perched in a tree and stayed there all night, keeping the girl with them. The mother, exhausted from the long journey chasing after them, lay down beneath the tree and slept so deeply that at dawn she did not hear the rustling of the gray wings as the birds started taking flight. She did not wake up until the sun was high in the heavens.
When she realized that the pigeons had left, taking her child with them, she returned to the village to tell everyone about the great calamity that had befallen her. The pigeons, in the meantime, reached their own land, feeling proud of the captive they had brought back with them.
Now when the king of the pigeons set eyes on the beautiful maiden, he longed to make her his wife, and he soon married her. She became the queen. And for years she lived among the pigeon-folk and bore her husband three sons. But she was unable to forget her own people, and her heart longed to see them. Years passed by, and her sons grew to be fine young men, tall and straight. One day, when the king was making preparations for a hunting expedition with his warriors, he told the queen that he was planning to take his sons along. The queen gave her consent, but before they left she took them aside and told them that they should leave the hunt and return to the village. She told them to pretend that they had been injured or to say that they were not feeling well and then ask their father if they could miss the hunt. Then they would be able to return to the village and leave with her for her native land.
When the king left the village with his expedition, the queen was all alone with her husband’s mother, who was deeply suspicious of her daughter-in-law. She feared that this stranger-wife was up to no good.
Meanwhile, before the huntsmen had gone very far, the youngest of the king’s sons stumbled down to the ground and asked his father if he could return to the kraal. The king, suspecting nothing, sent the boy back home.
A little later, the second boy complained that he was ill and asked his father if he could return home. And the third said that he felt a throbbing pain in his head and wanted to go back home.
Once all three had reached the kraal, the queen gathered her possessions together and set out with her sons. She was sure that no one had seen her, but the king’s mother knew exactly what was happening, and she rushed to the outskirts of the village and cried out with a shrill voice, “Yi! Yi! The queen has run away and has taken her sons with her.”
One of the hunters had ears as keen as a hare’s, and he heard her voice. “Hark!” he cried out, “I just heard someone shouting that the queen has run away and taken the king’s children with her.”
The others in the party were enraged and said, “Hold your tongue. You will bring misfortune to the king’s children.” Because men hate the bearers of bad tidings, they killed him and continued on their way.
Meanwhile the evil omen sounded again across the veld, and this time it was heard by another one of the hunters, who told the others to listen. “I hear a voice,” he said. “And it is shouting out that the queen has run away with her children.” They, too, believed that he meant to harm the young princes, and they killed him as well.
The shrill voice was heard a third time, and a third hunter told everyone to stop and listen. He too would have been slain, but he said, “You have already killed two of the king’s men because they paid attention to the warning. I can hear it now too, but don’t kill me. Let me return to the village to determine whether this is true or not.”
They paid heed to his words and took him before the king, who listened to his tale and then said, “Let the man go back to the kraal and bring back tidings of the queen and my sons.”
The hunter returned to the village as
fast as he could, and when he discovered that the queen had left, taking her sons with her, he returned to the king and told him what had happened.
The king of the pigeons summoned his vast army, and in all quarters of the heavens you could hear the whirring of gray wings. There were so many birds in the sky that the face of the sun disappeared and the sky grew dark. When all the birds had assembled, the king told his warriors about how the queen had run away with his children. To save his good name and his honor, they had to bring her back home.
After the king had spoken, there was a stirring of angry wings like the sound of a stormy sea beating upon the shores, and, with the king leading the charge, the pigeon army swept southward in pursuit of the truant queen.
Meanwhile the queen had reached a deep sea, the farther shore of which could be dimly seen against the sky. Standing at a place where the waves broke at her feet, she cried, “Sea, Sea, divide and make a path in the waters so that I may cross with my children.”
At the sound of her voice, the waters parted, and the queen and her children walked on dry land and reached the farther shore in safety. Then the waters rolled back with a crash of thunder, just when the army of pigeons reached the edge of the waters.
The pigeons could see the queen and her sons on the opposite shore, and they wondered how she had managed to cross, especially since the sea was so vast that their wings could not possibly bear them to the other shore.
When she saw the pigeons on the other side of the sea, the queen began to think about how she could fool them, and she braided a long rope from grass and flung it across the waters, shouting, “Fly up on this rope, and I will pull you across.”
The pigeons flew up onto the rope as fast as they could, and the queen began looking around for a sharp stone. While the pigeons and the hunters were on the rope, she severed it, and the king and his whole army sank into the sea. The waters closed over them, and no one was left to tell the tale of their destruction.
The queen returned with her sons to her own people, and her homecoming was celebrated with dancing and singing and much rejoicing.
ANIMAL BRIDES
THE GRATEFUL CRANE
Japan
Into the most humdrum of laboring lives comes a sudden burst of beauty. In this darkly intense drama, pathos mingles with sensuality as Musai’s tender act of kindness is rewarded with a graceful bride, lovely beyond his wildest imagination. In Asian cultures, cranes are omens of good fortune, happiness, and longevity, and they are said to have a life span of a thousand years. “The Crane Wife,” as the story is also called, became one of the most widely known folktales in Japan, rivaled only by “Momotaro, the Peach Boy.” It migrated into new media in Japanese culture during the era following World War II. The bride in this tale is not at all reluctant and willingly makes her home with humans, despite the pain she suffers as a supportive wife and the unbidden voyeuristic gaze to which she is subjected.
“Fighting sparrows are not afraid of man,” as the old proverb says. Yet it was not a sparrow but a crane that fell down to earth one day. It landed near the feet of Musai, a farmer’s boy, as he waded in the rice-fields, working from dawn to dusk.
The farmer’s boy was accustomed to seeing cranes, for these long-legged birds stride right into the furrows made by ploughs on dry land. The birds are not at all afraid, for who would think of harming the white-breasted creatures that everyone calls Honorable Lord Crane? The graceful birds seem to love being near men working in the rice paddies, where the seeds from which the rice plants grow are sown under four inches of water. The crane is so elegant in all its movements that many a young woman who moves gracefully will hear people referring to her as the “bird that rises up from the water without muddying the stream.”
Musai hurried to the grassy bank at the edge of the rice paddy as fast as he could move through the muddy waters to see what was wrong with the crane. He threw his hoe down when he saw the crane lying on the grass, with an arrow in its back. Drops of red blood were spattered on its white plumage. The bird was not at all frightened when Musai edged closer. Instead, it bent its neck down, as if to make it easier for the farmer’s boy to help.
Musai pulled the arrow out as gently as possible and helped the bird rise by pushing back the undergrowth so that nothing would be in the way of the broad white pinions. After making a few feeble attempts to fly, the bird spread its wings, rose up from the ground, and, after flying in circles around its benefactor as if to thank him, soared off toward the mountains.
Musai returned to work, hoping that his labor would yield a new crop at harvesting time. He had to work every day, for he had a widowed mother to support. His one joy was to return home and take a hot bath after working long hours in the muddy rice paddies. His mother always made sure that it was ready for him. Once he finished the bath and put on a fresh kimono, he would rest up before supper and was ready for a quiet evening with his neighbors.
Autumn was on its way, and one day, returning home before sunset, Musai saw a beautiful girl sitting next to his mother. Even though he was covered with mud from the fields where he had been knee-deep in the mire, the young woman welcomed him with the graciousness of a princess.
Unprepared to return the warm greeting and embarrassed by his unwashed state, Musai took off the kerchief covering his head, drew in his breath, and, bowing to his mother, asked, “Who is this young woman and how did she come here?”
“My son,” his mother replied. “You have become a man, but you still do not have a wife. Your reputation for obedience, filial respect, fidelity, and politeness is well known. For that reason, this fair lady is ready to be your wife. I was unable to reply to her request without your consent. What do you think?”
The young farmer was flattered, but he thought hard before speaking. “The young woman appears to be well bred and is most likely of noble birth. If I were to marry her, how could she endure the poverty we live in? Will she be patient when she goes hungry? It may be that the promise of love and happiness will last for just a while, and then we will separate. All that will remain is gloom mixed with sorrow.”
As the days passed by, he saw how kindly the woman treated his mother. She was patient, undemanding, and respectful. Soon all his fears were driven away, like clouds by the wind. And the young man and woman were married.
When harvest time came, the rice ears turned out to be nothing but husks and shells. They had failed to ripen, and the crop was a total failure. With taxes unpaid and no food in the house, famine threated them. By winter, they were in dire straits.
The patient wife then cheered up her husband by revealing the powers she had. “If you can build me a spinning room, I will make a cloth that has never been seen before in these parts. But I can’t weave out in the open, and I can’t make my fine pattern of red and white in the cloth unless I am completely alone in a quiet place. Build me that room, and the money you need will flow in.”
The mother was skeptical about her daughter-in-law’s project, and even Musai doubted she could succeed. Still, he went to work on making the room. He built a separate hut, using beams and thatching. He put mats on the floor and finished the windows with latticed paper. And finally he put a smooth layer of clay on the walls, to make sure the place was sealed off from the world. There, day after day, secluded from everyone, the sweet wife worked alone and unseen. Her husband and his mother waited patiently for a week, when the little woman rejoined the family circle. In her hands she was carrying a roll of woven fabric, white with a satin sheen, as lustrous and pure as fresh snow. Here and there a crimson thread could be seen in the fabric, and it only strengthened the purity of the otherwise completely white cloth. The wonderful fabric was made up of just white threads and red.
“What shall we call it?” the astonished husband asked.
“It has no name, for there is nothing on earth like it,” the fair weaver replied.
“But it has to ha
ve a name. I shall take it to the Daimio. He will not buy it if he does not know what it is called.”
“Then,” said his wife, “tell him that it is called ‘White Crane’s cloth.’”
The fine fabric quickly passed into the hands of the lord of the castle, who sent it as a gift to the Empress in Kioto. Everyone was astonished by its sheen, and the Empress asked that the weaver be richly rewarded. The farmer husband soon had a thousand coins in his bag, and he hurried home to spread the shiny coins at his mother’s feet and to thank the wife who had brought him so much wealth. A feast was held, and for many weeks the family lived in prosperity on the money earned from the cloth.
A second time the harvest failed, and Musai asked his wife if she would be willing to weave another “White Crane’s cloth.” She cheerfully agreed, but told him to let her weave in private and not to look in on her until she was finished weaving the cloth.
But alas for human curiosity and the prying spirit! Not content with having been rescued from starvation by a wife who served him like a slave, Musai crept up to the paper partition, touched his tongue to the latticed pane, and poked his finger quietly through it, making a hole to which he glued his eye as he looked into the room.
What a sight! There was no woman weaving there, but a noble white crane, the same crane he had seen in the rice paddy, from whose back he had pulled the hunter’s arrow. Bending over the spinning wheel, the bird pulled the silky thread right from her own breast. By twisting and twining it, she turned it into the finest thread ever beheld by human eyes. From time to time, she pressed drops of red blood from her heart to dye a few strands, and so the weaving continued. The fabric was nearly finished.
Musai was so enthralled that he did not move. Suddenly, his mother called him, and he cried out in response, “Yes, I’m coming.”
The startled crane looked up and saw the eye in the wall. Throwing down thread and web she rushed angrily to the door, let out a shrill cry, and flew out the window. Like a white speck against the blue hills, she could be seen for a moment, and then she disappeared.