No, the little Water Sprite was never bored when he was with his three friends. But what he still liked best was sitting round the fire with them, roasting potatoes and filling himself up with “roast stones”.
One day, when the three boys arrived, he suggested, “What about a fire to roast potatoes? I’ve got a pile of dry reeds all ready. All you need to do is take the lightning out of your box and put it underneath, and they’ll burn.”
“Lightning out of our box … ?” asked the boys.
“Yes, lightning!” said the little Water Sprite. “You’ve got a little box full of thin sticks, I know you have. And when you take a stick out and go swish, there’s lightning out of the box – and the lightning makes the stick catch fire.”
“Oh, you mean matches!” said the boys. One of them put his hand in his trouser-pocket.
“That’s it,” the little Water Sprite agreed, glancing at the box that the boy held under his nose. “I must say, you really are a bit slow on the uptake sometimes!”
The boy was just going to strike a match, but one of the others said, “Wait a minute. Why don’t we let the little Water Sprite do it? Wouldn’t you like to bring magic lightning out of the box yourself?” he asked, turning to the little Water Sprite.
“Yes, you’re right,” cried the other boys. “Let the little Water Sprite do it.”
They gave the little Water Sprite the box. He took out a match and put it gingerly against the box.
“Are you sure it won’t burn my fingers?” he asked anxiously.
“No, no,” the children assured him. “If it gets too hot, just throw it away. It won’t hurt you.”
So the little Water Sprite struck the match. But he didn’t quite trust it, and he was rather too hasty, so it went out at once.
“Try another,” said the boys. “Take a bit more time over it.”
He obeyed.
This time the little Water Sprite succeeded. Proudly he held the burning match under the reeds. The flames crackled and leapt up. He was delighted.
“Not bad, for a beginner!” his friends praised him.
“Keep the box if you like, little Water Sprite,” the owner of the box added. “I’ll give it to you.”
“And the sticks too?”
“Yes, of course!” said the boy. “You couldn’t make ‘lightning’ come out of the box without them.”
The little Water Sprite was so pleased he could have flung his arms round the boy. He threw the match-box high into the air, caught it and threw it up again, clapping his hands for joy in-between catches.
Then he suddenly put the box in his pocket, turned round and ran to the pond.
“Hi, what’s up?” the boys called, bewildered.
But the little Water Sprite didn’t hear them. Taking his box with him he had already leapt head first into the water.
Hocus-Pocus
While the boys were sitting on the bank, roasting potatoes in the fire and wondering what on earth had come over the little Water Sprite, the little Water Sprite was swimming round the mill-pond in search of Cyprian the carp.
Cyprian had been in a rather bad mood lately. He was annoyed because the little Water Sprite spent so much time with the boys. “Don’t talk to me about men!” Cyprian had snapped at him. “Either they come swimming and stir up the mud so you can hardly see your way home, or they hang those beastly fishing rods in the water, just waiting for you to bite so they can gobble you up. With butter and onion rings, I believe. No, don’t talk to me about men! Water Sprites should never get mixed up with men, never. I don’t know how you can forget yourself that far! I don’t know at all!”
“What a surprise for old Cyprian when I show him my present!” thought the little Water Sprite.
He pictured the carp’s astonishment when he brought magic lightning out of his box. That would show him it wasn’t so silly for water sprites to make friends with men, after all.
He found the old carp after a long search, said hello and produced his box.
“Guess what I’ve got here,” he said.
“Humph!” Cyprian grunted. “How should I know what you’ve got there? Worms, perhaps? Bread crumbs?”
“Lightning!” the little Water Sprite announced.
“Lightning? In a tiny box like that?” Cyprian looked at the little Water Sprite and shook his head. “Is this a joke?”
“Not at all,” said the little Water Sprite. “There’s real lightning in this box. It’s perfectly true. I’ll show you.”
Cyprian watched suspiciously as the little Water Sprite took out a match. He didn’t much care for the idea. To be on the safe side he drew back a little.
“Now I say ‘Hocus-pocus’,” the little Water Sprite explained solemnly. “Watch what happens then! Ready? Hocus … pocus …”
As he said “pocus” he struck the match. But much to his dismay, it didn’t work this time. There wasn’t even the tiniest flash of lightning, still less any flame.
“Is that all?” inquired Cyprian, swimming nearer again. “Rather disappointing, I must say!”
“Oh, that always happens the first time,” said the little Water Sprite confidently. “It’s all right the second time. Wait and see.” But he had promised too much. The matches wouldn’t burn – not the second match, nor the third, nor the fourth.
“Call that lightning!” said Cyprian scornfully. “If that’s lightning, then I’m a tree-frog! Ha, ha! What nonsense! You must look for a bigger fool than me to believe you!” He blew mocking air bubbles.
“I can’t understand it…. Why won’t it work any more?” wondered the little Water Sprite sadly. He told the carp how well it had worked before, when he was up on land with the three boys.
“Ah, so you got the box from men,” said Cyprian. “That explains it. They’ve been teasing you, that’s what it is. I’ve told you to be wary of them, hundreds and thousands of times I’ve told you. But you just won’t listen. So of course you go and make a fool of yourself. I know what I’d do, if I were you.”
“What?” asked the little Water Sprite.
“I’d swim up,” said Cyprian, “and I’d throw their box back in their faces. That’s what I’d do. And then I’d say, ‘Go and drown yourselves!’”
“Well, I won’t say that,” said the little Water Sprite. “But I will just go and ask them about it. I simply can’t believe they’re teasing me.”
“Teasing you?” said the boys, when the little Water Sprite told them about his misadventure. “No one wanted to tease you, honestly. But matches won’t burn once you’ve taken them under water. Water spoils them, you see; you can’t help it.”
“Shall I throw the rest away, then?” asked the little Water Sprite.
“Yes, throw them into the fire. We’ll bring you some more tomorrow.”
“I knew Cyprian was only trying to run you down!” said the little Water Sprite. “But he doesn’t know you as well as I do.”
He put the matches one by one on the fire.
Just as he was about to throw the box in after them, the eldest boy stopped him.
“No, keep that,” he said. “Do you know what? I’ve got an idea. We’ll fill the empty box with worms. Then you can take it down to Cyprian the carp as a present from us. Perhaps he won’t think so badly of us then.”
Good Night, Little Water Sprite
Time passed by. The year grew older and older. The trees had already lost their leaves, and it rained often. The little Water Sprite’s friends came to the mill-pond less and less. When they did venture out they wore long socks and raincoats. But most days the little Water Sprite waited for them in vain.
One morning the sun was shining again at last. The little Water Sprite saw it when he looked out of the window. The water was brighter and clearer than it had been for days.
“They’re sure to come today,” the boy said to himself. He was glad he would see them.
He was not to know what had happened to the pond overnight. Unsuspectingly, he dressed, ate his
breakfast and got ready to swim to the bank. He meant to sit in the branches of the old willow, as usual, keeping watch. When he saw his friends coming he would wave.
He didn’t expect anything unusual when he came to the surface. But suddenly he hit his nose on something hard and cold. He couldn’t get his head above water.
“How peculiar!” he said to himself. “I’ve hit something. I can feel it, but I can’t see it. What can it be? I wonder if I could get through somewhere else? I must go on land, anyway – it would be much nicer up there.”
But the little Water Sprite couldn’t get through, wherever he tried. It felt as if the whole pond were covered with glass. At last the little Water Sprite had to give up. He swam thoughtfully home.
“Well, well,” said Father Water Sprite, when the boy told him about his discovery. “It’s getting late, then. Winter is coming, and the pond is frozen. Time to get into bed and pull up the blankets and go to sleep.”
“But we’ve only just got up!” protested the little Water Sprite.
“It’s time for Water Sprites to go to sleep, all the same,” said his father. “You’ll just have to put up with it. Anyway, you’re not missing much in wintertime. When spring comes the sun will wake us up again.”
“Are you quite sure?” asked the little Water Sprite.
“Yes, quite sure,” said his father, “as sure as I am that you’re my boy! Come along and lie down. Mother has already made the beds.”
The little Water Sprite followed him into the bedroom. He suddenly felt very tired, so tired that Mother had to help him undress. When he was lying contentedly in bed, Father Water Sprite took his hand once more and nodded kindly.
“Till spring!” said Father Water Sprite.
“Till spring,” the little Water Sprite repeated, “till … spring …”
He thought about his friends, and all the adventures he had had. His first outing in the pond with his father – their game of hide-and-seek in the waterweeds – his ride home on Cyprian the carp afterwards. The voyage in the wooden box – the sliding game over the mill-wheel – the silvery moonlit night up on the bank …
It had been wonderful. He could easily spend the whole winter dreaming about his adventures.
He heard a voice say, “Good night, little Water Sprite.”
The voice seemed to come from very far away. Who was it? He knew it – it was a kind voice.
“Good night, little Water Sprite!” it repeated. Then the little Water Sprite knew it was his mother. He was glad he had heard his mother’s voice once more before he fell fast asleep, to dream happy dreams all winter long.
OTFRIED PREUSSLER (1923–2013) was born into a family of teachers in Reichenberg, Czechoslovakia, and as a boy loved listening to the folktales of the region. Drafted into the army during World War II, Preussler was captured in 1944 and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war in the Tatar Republic. After his release, he moved to Bavaria and became a primary-school teacher and principal, supplementing his income by working as a reporter for a local newspaper and by writing scripts for children’s radio. One of the most popular authors for children in Germany, Preussler was twice awarded the German Children’s Book Prize. His many books have been translated into fifty-five languages and have sold over fifty million copies. New York Review Books also publishes Preussler’s Krabat & the Sorcerer’s Mill and The Little Witch and will publish The Robber Hotzenplotz in 2016.
ANTHEA BELL is a translator from the German, French, and Danish, and the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize, and, three times over, the Marsh Award for Children’s Literature in Translation. She has translated Asterix, Hans Christian Andersen, Cornelia Funke, Kerstin Gier, W. G. Sebald, Sigmund Freud, and several novels by Otfried Preussler.
WINNIE GEBHARDT-GAYLER (1929–2014) was a German illustrator who was a frequent collaborator with Otfried Preussler.
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