The Blue Fairy Book

by Andrew Lang

  ‘Oh! look how those two there are fighting for the golden apple,’ said the King’s son.

  ‘Yes, and so did we two fight to get out that time when we were in the mountain,’ said the Master-maid.

  So the Prince knew her again, and you may imagine how delighted he was. He ordered the troll-witch who had rolled the apple to him to be torn in pieces between four-and-twenty horses, so that not a bit of her was left, and then for the first time they began really to keep the wedding, and, weary as they were, the sheriff, the attorney, and the bailiff kept it up too.9

  WHY THE SEA IS SALT

  ONCE upon a time, long, long ago, there were two brothers, the one rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in the house, either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and begged him, in God’s name, to give him something for Christmas Day. It was by no means the first time that the brother had been forced to give somothing to him, and he was not better pleased at being asked now than he generally was.

  ‘If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole ham,’ said he. The poor one immediately thanked him, and promised this.

  ‘Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight to Dead Man’s Hall,’ said the rich brother, throwing the ham to him.

  ‘Well, I will do what I have promised,’ said the other, and he took the ham and set off. He went on and on for the livelong day, and at nightfall he came to a place where there was a bright light.

  ‘I have no doubt this is the place,’ thought the man with the ham.

  An old man with a long white beard was standing in the outhouse, chopping Yule logs.

  ‘Good-evening,’ said the man with the ham.

  ‘Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this late hour?’ said the man.

  ‘I am going to Dead Man’s Hall, if only I am in the right track,’ answered the poor man.

  ‘Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here,’ said the old man.

  ‘When you get inside they will all want to buy your ham, for they don’t get much meat to eat there: but you must not sell it unless you can get the hand-mill which stands behind the door for it. When you come out again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which is useful for almost everything.

  So the man with the ham thanked the other for his good advice, and rapped at the door.

  When he got in, everything happened just as the old man had said it would: all the people, great and small, came round him like ants on an ant-hill, and each tried to outbid the other for the ham.

  ‘By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for our Christmas dinner, but, since you have set your hearts upon it, I must just give it up to you,’ said the man. ‘But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which is standing there behind the door.’

  At first they would not hear of this, and haggled and bargained with the man, but he stuck to what he had said, and the people were forced to give him the hand-mill. When the man came out again into the yard, he asked the old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and when he had learnt that he thanked him and set off home with all the speed he could, but did not get there until after the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.

  ‘But where in the world have you been?’ said the old woman. ‘Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot.’

  ‘Oh! I could not come before; I had something of importance to see about, and a long way to go, too; but now you shall just see!’ said the man, and then he set the hand-mill on the table, and bade it first grind light, then a table-cloth, and then meat, and beer, and everything else that was good for a Christmas Eve’s supper; and the mill ground all that he ordered. ‘Bless me!’ said the old woman as one thing after another appeared; and she wanted to know where her husband had got the mill from, but he would not tell her that.

  ‘Never mind where I got it; you can see that it is a good one, and the water that turns it will never freeze,’ said the man. So he ground meat and drink, and all kinds of good things, to last all Christmas-tide, and on the third day he invited all his friends to come to a feast.

  Now when the rich brother saw all that there was at the banquet and in the house, he was both vexed and angry, for he grudged everything his brother had. ‘On Christmas Eve he was so poor that he came to me and begged for a trifle, for God’s sake, and now he gives a feast as if he were both a count and a king!’ thought he. ‘But, for heaven’s sake, tell me where you got your riches from,’ said he to his brother.

  ‘From behind the door,’ said he who owned the mill, for he did not choose to satisfy his brother on that point; but later in the evening, when he had taken a drop too much, he could not refrain from telling how he had come by the hand-mill. ‘There you see what has brought me all my wealth!’ said he, and brought out the mill, and made it grind first one thing and then another. When the brother saw that he insisted on having the mill, and after a great deal of persuasion got it; but he had to give three hundred dollars for it, and the poor brother was to keep it till the haymaking was over, for he thought: ‘If I keep it as long as that, I can make it grind meat and drink that will last many a long year.’ During that time you may imagine that the mill did not grow rusty, and when hay-harvest came the rich brother got it, but the other had taken good care not to teach him how to stop it. It was evening when the rich man got the mill home, and in the morning he bade the old woman go out and spread the hay after the mowers, and he would attend to the house himself that day, he said.

  So, when dinner-time drew near, he set the mill on the kitchen-table, and said: ‘Grind herrings and milk pottage, and do it both quickly and well.’

  So the mill began to grind herrings and milk pottage, and first all the dishes and tubs were filled, and then it came out all over the kitchen-floor. The man twisted and turned it, and did all he could to make the mill stop, but, howsoever he turned it and screwed it, the mill went on grinding, and in a short time the pottage rose so high that the man was like to be drowned. So he threw open the parlour-door, but it was not long before the mill had ground the parlour full too, and it was with difficulty and danger that the man could go through the stream of pottage and get hold of the door-latch. When he got the door open, he did not stay long in the room, but ran out, and the herrings and pottage came after him, and it streamed out over both farm and field. Now the old woman, who was out spreading the hay, began to think dinner was long in coming, and said to the women and the mowers: ‘ Though the master does not call us home, we may as well go. It may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage, and I should do well to help him.’ So they began to straggle homewards, but when they had got a little way up the hill they met the herrings and pottage and bread, all pouring forth and winding about one over the other, and the man himself in front of the flood. ‘Would to heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs! Take care that you are not drowned in the pottage!’ he cried as he went by them as if Mischief were at his heels, down to where his brother dwelt. Then he begged him, for God’s sake, to take the mill back again, and that in an instant, for, said he: ‘If it grind one hour more the whole district will be destroyed by herrings and pottage.’ But the brother would not take it until the other paid him three hundred dollars, and that he was obliged to do. Now the poor brother had both the money and the mill again. So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much finer than that in which his brother lived, but the mill ground him so much money that he covered it with plates of gold; and the farmhouse lay close by the sea-shore, so it shone and glittered far out to sea. Everyone who sailed by there now had to put in to visit the rich man in the gold farmhouse, and everyone wanted to see the wonderful mill, for the report of it spread far and wide, and there was no one who had not heard tell of it.

  After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished to see the mill. He asked if it could make salt. ‘Yes, it could make salt,’ said he who owned it, and when the skipp
er heard that he wished with all his might and main to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought, if he had it, he would get off having to sail far away over the perilous sea for freights of salt. At first the man would not hear of parting with it, but the skipper begged and prayed, and at last the man sold it to him, and got many, many thousand dollars for it. When the skipper had got the mill on his back he did not long stay there, for he was so afraid that the man should change his mind, and he had no time to ask how he was to stop it grinding, but got on board his ship as fast as he could.

  When he had gone a little way out to sea he took the mill on deck. ‘Grind salt, and grind both quickly and well,’ said the skipper. So the mill began to grind salt, till it spouted out like water, and when the skipper had got the ship filled he wanted to stop the mill, but, whichsoever way he turned it, and how much soever he tried, it went on grinding, and the heap of salt grew higher and higher, until at last the ship sank. There lies the mill at the bottom of the sea, and still, day by day, it grinds on: and that is why the sea is salt.10

  THE MASTER CAT; OR, PUSS IN BOOTS

  THERE was a miller who left no more estate to the three sons he had than his mill, his ass, and his cat. The partition was soon made. Neither the scrivener nor attorney was sent for. They would soon have eaten up all the poor patrimony. The eldest had the mill, the second the ass, and the youngest nothing but the cat.

  The poor young fellow was quite comfortless at having so poor a lot.

  ‘My brothers,’ said he,‘may get their living handsorriely enough by joining their stocks together; but, for my part, when I have eaten up my cat, and made me a muff of his skin, I must die of hunger.’

  The Cat, who heard all this, but made as if he did not, said to him with a grave and serious air:

  ‘Do not thus afflict yourself, my good master; you have nothing else to do but to give me a bag, and get a pair of boots made for me, that I may scamper through the dirt and the brambles, and you shall see that you have not so bad a portion of me as you imagine.’

  The Cat’s master did not build very much upon what he said; he had, however, often seen him play a great many cunning tricks to catch rats and mice; as when he used to hang by the heels, or hide himself in the meal, and make as if he were dead; so that he did not altogether despair of his affording him some help in his miserable condition. When the Cat had what he asked for, he booted himself very gallantly, and, putting his bag about his neck, he held the strings of it in his two fore paws, and went into a warren where was great abundance of rabbits. He put bran and sow-thistle into his bag, and, stretching out at length, as if he had been dead, he waited for some young rabbits, not yet acquainted with the deceits of the world, to come and rummage his bag for what he had put into it.

  Scarce was he lain down but he had what he wanted: a rash and foolish young rabbit jumped into his bag, and Monsieur Puss, immediately drawing close the strings, took and killed him without pity. Proud of his prey, he went with it to the palace, and asked to speak with his Majesty. He was shown upstairs into the King’s apartment, and, making a low reverence, said to him:

  ‘I have brought you, sir, a rabbit of the warren, which my noble Lord, the Master of Carabas’ (for that was the title which Puss was pleased to give his master) ‘has commanded me to present to your Majesty from him.’

  ‘Tell thy master,’ said the King, ‘that I thank him, and that he does me a great deal of pleasure.’

  Another time he went and hid himself among some standing corn, holding still his bag open; and, when a brace of partridges ran into it, he drew the strings, and so caught them both. He went and made a present of these to the King, as he had done before of the rabbit which he took in the warren. The King, in like manner, received the partridges with great pleasure, and ordered him some money, to drink.

  The Cat continued for two or three months thus to carry his Majesty, from time to time, game of his master’s taking. One day in particular, when he knew for certain that he was to take the air along the river-side, with his daughter, the most beautiful princess in the world, he said to his master:

  ‘If you will follow my advice your fortune is made. You have nothing else to do but go and wash yourself in the river, in that part I shall show you, and leave the rest to me.’

  The Marquis of Carabas did what the Cat advised him to, without knowing why or wherefore. While he was washing the King passed by, and the Cat began to cry out:

  ‘Help! help! My Lord Marquis of Carabas is going to be drowned.’

  At this noise the King put his head out of the coach-window, and, finding it was the Cat who had so often brought him such good game, he commanded his guards to run immediately to the assistance of his Lordship the Marquis of Carabas. While they were drawing the poor Marquis out of the river, the Cat came up to the coach and told the King that, while his master was washing, there came by some rogues, who went off with his clothes, though he had cried out: ‘Thieves! thieves!’ several times, as loud as he could.

  This cunning Cat had hidden them under a great stone. The King immediately commanded the officers of his wardrobe to run and fetch one of his best suits for the Lord Marquis of Carabas.

  The King caressed him after a very extraordinary manner, and as the fine clothes he had given him extremely set off his good mien (for he was well made and very handsome in his person), the King’s daughter took a secret inclination to him, and the Marquis of Carabas had no sooner cast two or three respectful and somewhat tender glances but she fell in love with him to distraction. The King would needs have him come into the coach and take part of the airing. The Cat, quite over-joyed to see his project begin to succeed, marched on before, and, meeting with some countrymen, who were mowing a meadow, he said to them:

  ‘Good people, you who are mowing, if you do not tell the King that the meadow you mow belongs to my Lord Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as herbs for the pot.’

  The King did not fail asking of the mowers to whom the meadow they were mowing belonged.

  ‘To my Lord Marquis of Carabas,’ answered they altogether, for the Cat’s threats had made them terribly afraid.

  ‘You see, sir,’ said the Marquis, ‘this is a meadow which never fails to yield a plentiful harvest every year.’

  The Master Cat, who went still on before, met with some reapers, and said to them:

  ‘Good people, you who are reaping, if you do not tell the King that all this corn belongs to the Marquis of Carabas, you shall be chopped as small as herbs for the pot.’

  The King, who passed by a moment after, would needs know to whom all that corn, which he then saw, did belong.

  ‘To my Lord Marquis of Carabas,’ replied the reapers, and the King was very well pleased with it, as well as the Marquis, whom he congratulated thereupon. The Master Cat, who went always before, said the same words to all he met, and the King was astonished at the vast estates of my Lord Marquis of Carabas.

  Monsieur Puss came at last to a stately castle, the master of which was an ogre, the richest had ever been known; for all the lands which the King had then gone over belonged to this castle. The Cat, who had taken care to inform himself who this ogre was and what he could do, asked to speak with him, saying he could not pass so near his castle without having the honour of paying his respects to him.

  The ogre received him as civilly as an ogre could do, and made him sit down.

  ‘I have been assured,’ said the Cat, ‘that you have the gift of being able to change yourself into all sorts of creatures you have a mind to; you can, for example, transform yourself into a lion, or elephant, and the like.’

  ‘ That is true,’ answered the ogre very briskly; ‘and to convince you, you shall see me now become a lion.’

  Puss was so sadly terrified at the sight of a lion so near him that he immediately got into the gutter, not without abundance of trouble and danger, because of his boots, which were of no use at all to him in walking upon the tiles. A little while afte
r, when Puss saw that the ogre had resumed his natural form, he came down, and owned he had been very much frightened.

  ‘I have been moreover informed,’ said the Cat, ‘but I know not how to believe it, that you have also the power to take on you the shape of the smallest animals; for example, to change yourself into a rat or a mouse; but I must own to you I take this to be impossible.’

  ‘Impossible!’ cried the ogre; ‘you shall see that presently.’ And at the same time he changed himself into a mouse, and began to run about the floor. Puss no sooner perceived this but he fell upon him and ate him up.

  Meanwhile the King, who saw, as he passed, this fine castle of the ogre’s, had a mind to go into it. Puss, who heard the noise of his Majesty’s coach running over the draw-bridge, ran out, and said to the King:

  ‘Your Majesty is welcome to this castle of my Lord Marquis of Carabas.’

  ‘What! my Lord Marquis,’ cried the King, ‘and does this castle also belong to you? There can be nothing finer than this court and all the stately buildings which surround it; let us go into it, if you please.’

  The Marquis gave his hand to the Princess, and followed the King, who went first. They passed into a spacious hall, where they found a magnificent collation, which the ogre had prepared for his friends, who were that very day to visit him, but dared not to enter, knowing the King was there. His Majesty was perfectly charmed with the good qualities of my Lord Marquis of Carabas, as was his daughter, who had fallen violently in love with him, and, seeing the vast estate he possessed, said to him, after having drunk five or six glasses:

  ‘It will be owing to yourself only, my Lord Marquis, if you are not my son-in-law.’

  The Marquis, making several low bows, accepted the honour which his Majesty conferred upon him, and forthwith, that very same day, married the Princess.