Cape Grimm

by Carmel Bird

  Together they devised a plan. Every time the prince came to visit Rapunzel he would bring with him a skein of yellow silk. With this Rapunzel would weave a ladder, and when the ladder was finished she would climb down and meet him, and they would ride away together. So the prince came to visit Rapunzel every night for forty nights, and the witch came to visit her by day. Now Rapunzel was a girl of certain guile, but even the most diligent liars and tricksters will one day be unable to keep concealed the truths that occupy their hearts. And so it was that one day Rapunzel said to the witch, ‘How is it that you are so much slower and heavier than the prince?’

  Then the witch guessed what had happened, and in her rage she fetched her enormous scissors from her belt and she chopped off Rapunzel’s long red-gold tresses then and there, and made of them a ladder down which she and Rapunzel, who was weeping with despair, climbed. It was the first time Rapunzel had ever walked upon the earth, and she stumbled as she was dragged along to the witch’s house close by.

  Here the witch secured her to the bedhead with a rope made from the sinews of a fallow deer, then set off back to the tower where she lay in wait for the prince on his nightly visit. And when he called out for Rapunzel, the witch let down the yellow braids in the moonlight, and the prince swiftly and lightly leapt up the wall in joy, only to be greeted by the witch in all her hideous rage.

  ‘Your beautiful bird sits no longer singing in her nest, for the cat has taken her, and the cat will scratch out your eyes and you will never see Rapunzel again.’

  In his distress the prince rushed to the window and cast himself from the tower, to land in a thicket of wild roses where his eyes were pierced by thorns and bled bright blood across the white petals of the rose. The witch returned in triumph to her house, where she looked upon Rapunzel with great disgust and hatred. And after a time she took Rapunzel far, far out to the edge of the forest, to where the desert begins, and there she left her.

  The prince wandered blindly in the forest for several years, eating roots and berries and weeping for his loss, until he came one day to a place where he could hear a woman singing. She was singing to her children, a little boy and girl, and the song that she sang was the song he had heard on the night when he first met Rapunzel. He approached the voice, and when she saw him Rapunzel knew him, and she fell upon his neck and she wept. Her tears fell across his face, and rivulets of her tears flowed into the prince’s eyes, and his eyes opened, and grew clear again, and he could see his beautiful Rapunzel and the children who were his own twin son and daughter. He led them back to his kingdom where they all lived long and happy lives.

  On the day when the prince found Rapunzel again, a strange thing happened deep in the forest. A hare that was carrying a lighted candle in its teeth bounded into the witch’s little house and the enchantress was burned to death.

  ROBINSON, GEORGE AUGUSTUS (1791–1866)

  When George Robinson sailed for Australia in 1823 he left behind his wife and five children, but they later joined him in Van Diemen’s Land. He set about civilising and Christianising the indigenous peoples of the island, being appointed the first Chief Protector of Aborigines in Australia. He travelled great distances on horseback and on foot throughout both Van Diemen’s Land and the Australian mainland in pursuit of his duties. He made some of the earliest records of local culture and language. One of his most notorious projects was the failed attempt to round up the native peoples of Van Diemen’s Land by capturing them in a human net which moved across the island. He tried to investigate and report on the stories of black and white deaths at Cape Grim, but his account is only one version of the events that took place. Robinson remains one of the most problematic and interfering figures in the tragic early history of Van Diemen’s Land.

  ROSE

  Saint Rose of Lima (1586–1617) was canonised in 1671, and her feast day is 30 August. She was born Isabel de Flores y del Oliva in Lima, was always known as Rose, and was the first person in the Americas to be canonised. Rose’s family was very poor and Rose supplemented the family income by growing and selling flowers, embroidering and selling collars. She refused to marry, and when she was twenty she became a Dominican tertiary and lived in a summerhouse in the garden of her parents’ property. She was particularly devoted to the Virgin of the Rosary and to the Black Virgin of Atocha. She lived a life of strict prayer, rigid penance and mystical experience, and she became the subject of a church inquiry but was found to be beyond reproach. She ministered to slaves, to Indians, to the sick and the poor, and was considered to be a saint in her own lifetime, establishing the first free health clinic in the Americas. One of the most dramatic and popular stories of Saint Rose tells of the day in 1615, when Lima was threatened by Dutch pirates led by Jorge Spitberg. When the pirates advanced through the port and stormed the church in search of rich loot they were confronted by the sight of Rose, in her black and white habit, in a state of ecstasy, arms outstretched and barring their way to the holy tabernacle of the altar. The sight of her was blinding and frightening, and they fled. The next day the black sails of their fleet had vanished from the port.

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  SHOO-FLY PIE

  RECIPE

  INGREDIENTS

  Medium-size unbaked pie shell

  TOPPING

  1.5 cups flour

  1.5 cups sugar

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1/2 teaspoon salt

  1/4 cup butter

  BOTTOM

  1/2 cup molasses

  1/2 cup boiling water

  1/2 teaspoon baking soda

  METHOD

  Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  Mix all topping ingredients together, squeezing and crumbling to make crumbs the size of small peas. Set aside.

  In another bowl, dissolve baking soda in boiling water. Add molasses. Stir well.

  Pour into unbaked pie shell and add crumb topping, BUT be careful not to blend the topping with the molasses mixture.

  Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes, then at 350°F for 35 minutes.

  Cool and serve.

  SKYE

  This island to the west of Scotland, between the mainland and the islands of the Outer Hebrides, was first populated by Norse searoving peoples.

  The tiny community of Skye in northwest Tasmania was burnt out in 1992 and is now a ghost town.

  STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER

  Written by Hans Christian Anderson and first published in 1838.

  There were once five and twenty tin soldiers, all brothers, for they were the offspring of the same old tin spoon. Each man shouldered his gun, kept his eyes well to the front, and wore the smartest red and blue uniform imaginable. The first thing they heard in their new world, when the lid was taken off the box, was a little boy clapping his hands and crying, ‘Soldiers, soldiers!’ It was his birthday, and they had just been given to him.

  All the soldiers were exactly alike, with one exception, and he differed from the rest in having only one leg. For he was made last, and there was not quite enough tin left to finish him. However, he stood just as well on his one leg as the others on two. In fact he was the very one who was to become famous.

  On the table where the soldiers were being set up were many other toys, but the chief thing that caught the eye was a paper castle. You could see through the windows, right into the rooms. Outside there were some little trees surrounding a small mirror, representing a lake, whose surface reflected the waxen swans that were swimming about on it. And the prettiest thing of all was a little maiden standing at the open door of the castle. She, too, was cut out of paper, but she wore a dress of the lightest gauze, with a blue ribbon over her shoulders by way of a scarf, set off by a brilliant spangle as big as her whole face. She was stretching out both arms, for she was a dancer, and in the dance one of her legs was raised so high into the air that the tin soldier could see absolutely nothing of it, and he supposed that she, like himself, had but one leg.

  He thought she was so beautiful and that she
would make him the perfect wife. But then he realised she was much too grand for him, as she was a princess in a palace. However, he decided he would try to make friends with her and so he lay down full length behind a snuffbox which stood on the table. From that point he could have a good look at the dancer, who continued to stand on one leg without losing her balance.

  Late in the evening the other soldiers were put into their box, and the people of the house went to bed. There was a goblin in the snuffbox, and he saw the tin soldier staring at the dancer, and he said, ‘Have the goodness to keep your eyes to yourself.’

  But the tin soldier pretended not to hear.

  ‘Then you just wait till tomorrow,’ the goblin said.

  In the morning, when the little boy got up, he put the tin soldier on the window frame, and whether it was just a puff of wind, or whether the goblin gave the soldier a little push, no-one can tell, but the window flew open and the tin soldier tumbled from the third storey and landed with his bayonet wedged between two paving stones and with his leg in the air. The maidservant and the little boy ran to look for him, but they could not see him, and they almost trod on him. Presently it began to rain, and the drops fell faster and faster, till there was a regular torrent. When the storm was over, two boys came along.

  ‘Look,’ said one boy, ‘there’s a tin soldier. He shall go for a sail in the gutter.’

  So they made a boat out of a newspaper, and put the soldier into the middle of it, and he sailed away down the gutter. Both boys ran alongside, clapping their hands. What waves there were in the gutter, and what a current. The paper boat danced up and down, and now and then whirled round and round. A shudder ran through the tin soldier, but he remained undaunted, and did not move a muscle, only looked straight before him with his gun shouldered. All at once the boat drifted under a long wooden tunnel, and it became as dark as night. At this moment a big water rat, who lived in the tunnel, came up.

  ‘Have you a pass?’ asked the rat. ‘Hand me your pass!’

  The tin soldier did not speak, but clung still tighter to his gun. The boat rushed on, the rat close behind. He gnashed his teeth and shouted to the bits of stick and straw, ‘Stop him, stop him, he hasn’t paid his toll! He hasn’t shown his pass!’

  The current grew stronger and stronger, and the tin soldier could already see daylight before him at the end of the tunnel. But he also heard a roaring sound, fit to strike terror into the bravest heart. Where the tunnel ended the stream rushed straight into the big canal. He was so near the end now that it was impossible to stop. The boat dashed out, out into the waters of the canal. The boat swirled round three or four times, and filled with water to the edge. It must sink. The tin soldier stood up to his neck in water, and the boat sank deeper and deeper. The paper became limper and limper, and at last the water went over his head. Then he thought of the pretty little dancer, whom he was never to see again, and the thought of her made him brave.

  At last the paper gave way entirely and the soldier fell through, but at the same moment he was swallowed by an enormous fish.

  Oh! how dark it was inside that fish. But the tin soldier was as dauntless as ever, and lay full length, shouldering his gun. The fish rushed about and made the most frantic movements. At last it became quite quiet, and after a time a flash like lightning pierced the terrible darkness. The soldier was once more in the broad daylight, and someone called out, ‘Look, a tin soldier!’ The fish had been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the kitchen, where the cook cut it open with a large knife. She took the soldier up by the waist with two fingers and carried him into the parlour, where everyone wanted to see the wonderful man who had travelled about in the stomach of a fish. But the tin soldier was not at all proud. They set him up on the table, and, wonder of wonders, he found himself in the very same room that he had been in before. He saw the very same children, and the toys were still standing on the table, as well as the beautiful castle with the pretty little dancer.

  The dancer still stood on one leg and held the other up in the air. The soldier was so much moved that he was ready to shed tears of tin, but that would not have been fitting. He looked at her, and she looked at him, but they said never a word. At this moment one of the little boys took up the tin soldier and, without rhyme or reason, threw him headlong into the fire. Perhaps the little goblin in the snuffbox was to blame for that. The tin soldier stood there, lighted up by the flame and in the most horrible heat. He looked at the little dancer, and she looked at him, and he felt that he was melting away, but he still managed to keep himself upright, shouldering his gun.

  A door was suddenly opened, the draught caught the little dancer and she fluttered like a sylph straight into the fire. She fell upon the soldier, blazed up and was gone. By this time the soldier was reduced to a mere lump, and when the maid took away the ashes next morning she found him, in the shape of a small tin heart. All that was left of the dancer was the spangle from her scarf, and that was burnt as black as a coal. The tin heart and the spangle were welded together forever.

  STRUWWELPETER

  The character from a nineteenth-century children’s rhyme by Heinrich Hoffmann.

  ‘Just look at him! There he stands

  With his nasty hair and hands

  See! His nails are never cut

  They are grimed and black as soot

  And the sloven, I declare

  Never once has combed his hair

  Anything to me is sweeter

  Than to see Shock-headed Peter.’

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  TASMAN, ABEL JANSZOON (1603–1659)

  Born in Lutjegast, Holland; when he died he left twenty-five guilders to the poor of his village. His property was divided between his wife, Jannetje, and Claesgen, his daughter by his first marriage. Tasman is attributed with the discovery of Van Diemen’s Land, of New Zealand, and the Tonga and Fiji Islands. He was the first known navigator to sail all around Australia.

  In 1633 he was employed by the Dutch East India Company and soon commanded several of their ships and made a number of voyages to the East Indies. In 1639 he was dispatched by Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, on a voyage to the northwestern Pacific in search of ‘islands of gold and silver’ believed to lie east of Japan. On this voyage Tasman visited the Philippines and discovered and mapped various islands to the north. In 1642 he set out with the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen on his first great expedition to map the Great South Land, calling at Mauritius for repairs to the ships. He sighted Van Diemen’s Land on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the place after the man who had sent him. The first two mountains he sighted on the west coast were later named Mount Zeehan and Mount Heemskirk. He named an island ‘Maria’ after van Diemen’s wife. When he found and landed in New Zealand some of his men were killed by local warriors. And again he named the northern-most point of New Zealand after van Diemen’s wife. Islands of Tonga were later named Amsterdam and Rotterdam. After his return home he again sailed to Australia, where he mapped the north coast, naming the Gulf of Carpentaria. He resigned from the service in 1650, after having failed in an attempt to defeat ships of the Spanish fleet.

  TRUCANINI (1812–1876)

  Trucanini was a small and very beautiful member of the southeast tribe. By 1830 the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land was offering a bounty of five pounds for every adult native caught alive, and two pounds for every child. Trucanini was one of a small group who, in spite of receiving brutal treatment by many white people, tried to co-operate with the government and to improve the lives of Aborigines, as well as the relations between black and white people. For many years she was considered to be the last of the race of Tasmanian Aborigines, but the term is a dramatic inaccuracy since there are in the twenty-first century living descendants of the race. Her name is, however, emblematic of the tragedy visited upon the Tasmanian Aborigines by their white invaders.

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  VAN LOON, HARRY

  A senior research associate in the Climate and
Global Dynamics Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, and working in the area of El Niño.

  VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM (1882–1944)

  Born in Rotterdam, Holland, on 14 January 1882 and later moved to the United States where he graduated from Cornell, working for the Associated Press in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Moscow and Warsaw. He lectured at Cornell on European History from 1915–16. In 1921 he received the Newberry Medal for The Story of Mankind. He made his first radio broadcast on Christmas Day, 1929, and in 1939–40 his radio broadcasts were directed to Holland from WRVL in Boston. He died in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, on 11 March 1944. He is probably most remembered for his many books, which include The Story of Mankind, The Home of Mankind and Van Loon’s Lives, some of which are illustrated with sketches and watercolours by the author.

  VIRGIL

  Saint Virgil was an Irish monk and astronomer of the eighth century, his Irish name being Ferghil, who became the Bishop of Salzburg. Pope Zachary had some reservations about Virgil’s teachings on the real existence of another world beneath this world, a world of Irish fairies, which he labelled Antipodes. Virgil’s date of birth is not known, but he died in 784 and his feast day is 27 November.

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  WARDIAN CASE

  Edward Hinshelwood, who drowned when the Iris was wrecked in Bass Strait in 1851, had with him at that time several plant specimens preserved in wardian cases, miniature glasshouses which had proved effective for the transportation of plants from England to the colonies and back. As early as 500 BC, plants had been kept under bell jars for the purpose of exhibition, but it was not until 1829 that a London doctor, Nathaniel Ward, observed that a healthy fern had grown in the soil at the bottom of a covered jar in which he was keeping the cocoon of a moth. Unlike the ferns in his garden, which had suffered from the effects of factory fumes, this fern was flourishing. So Nathaniel Ward developed his fern cases, miniature terrariums, which have come to be known as wardian cases. He published an article in 1834 in The Gardener’s Magazine called, ‘On Growing Ferns and Other Plants in Glass Cases, in the Midst of the Smoke of London’; and ‘On Transporting Plants from one Country to Another by Similar Means’. His book, published in 1852, was called On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases.