The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library)

by Hearn, Michael Patrick

  So without further parleying,

  If you will not sell me any

  Of your fruits though much and many,

  Give me back my silver penny

  I tossed you for a fee.—

  They began to scratch their pates,

  No longer wagging, purring,

  But visibly demurring,

  Grunting and snarling.

  One called her proud,

  Cross-grained, uncivil;

  Their tones waxed loud,

  Their looks were evil.

  Lashing their tails

  They trod and hustled her,

  Elbowed and jostled her,

  Clawed with their nails,

  Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,

  Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,

  Twitched her hair out by the roots,

  Stamped upon her tender feet,

  Held her hands and squeezed their fruits

  Against her mouth to make her eat.

  White and golden Lizzie stood,

  Like a lily in a flood,—

  Like a rock of blue-veined stone

  Lashed by tides obstreperously,—

  Like a beacon left alone

  In a hoary roaring sea,

  Sending up a golden fire,—

  Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree

  White with blossoms honey-sweet

  Sore beset by wasp and bee,—

  Like a royal virgin town

  Topped with gilded dome and spire

  Close beleaguered by a fleet

  Mad to tug her standard down.

  One may lead a horse to water,

  Twenty cannot make him drink.

  Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,

  Coaxed and fought her,

  Bullied and besought her,

  Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,

  Kicked and knocked her,

  Mauled and mocked her,

  Lizzie uttered not a word;

  Would not open lip from lip

  Lest they should cram a mouthful in:

  But laughed in heart to feel the drip

  Of juice that syrupped all her face,

  And lodged in dimples of her chin,

  And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.

  At last the evil people

  Worn out by her resistance

  Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit

  Along whichever road they took,

  Not leaving root or stone or shoot;

  Some writhed into the ground,

  Some dived into the brook

  With ring and ripple,

  Some scudded on the gale without a sound,

  Some vanished in the distance.

  In a smart, ache, tingle,

  Lizzie went her way;

  Knew not was it night or day;

  Sprang up the bank, tore thro’ the furze,

  Threaded copse and dingle,

  And heard her penny jingle

  Bouncing in her purse,—

  Its bounce was music to her ear.

  She ran and ran

  As if she feared some goblin man

  Dogged her with gibe or curse

  Or something worse:

  But not one goblin skurried after,

  Nor was she pricked by fear;

  The kind heart made her windy-paced

  That urged her home quite out of breath with haste

  And inward laughter.

  She cried “Laura,” up the garden,

  “Did you miss me?

  Come and kiss me.

  Never mind my bruises,

  Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices

  Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,

  Goblin pulp and goblin dew.

  Eat me, drink me, love me;

  Laura, make much of me:

  For your sake I have braved the glen

  And had to do with goblin merchant men.”

  Laura started from her chair,

  flung her arms up in the air,

  Clutched her hair:

  “Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted

  For my sake the fruit forbidden?

  Must your light like mine be hidden,

  Your young life like mine be wasted,

  Undone in mine undoing

  And ruined in my ruin,

  Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?—

  She clung about her sister,

  Kissed and kissed and kissed her:

  Tears once again

  Refreshed her shrunken eyes,

  Dropping like rain

  After long sultry drouth;

  Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,

  She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

  Her lips began to scorch,

  The juice was wormwood to her tongue,

  She loathed the feast:

  Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,

  Rent all her robe, and wrung

  Her hands in lamentable haste,

  And beat her breast.

  Her locks streamed like the torch

  Borne by a racer at full speed,

  Or like the mane of horses in their flight,

  Or like an eagle when she stems the light

  Straight toward the sun,

  Or like a caged thing freed,

  Or like a flying flag when armies run.

  Swift fire spread through her veins, knocked at her heart.

  Met the fire smouldering there

  And overbore its lesser flame;

  She gorged on bitterness without a name:

  Ah! fool, to choose such part

  Of soul-consuming care!

  Sense failed in the mortal strife:

  Like the watch-tower of a town

  Which an earthquake shatters down,

  Like a lightning-stricken mast,

  Like a wind-uprooted tree

  Spun about,

  Like a foam-topped waterspout

  Cast down headlong in the sea,

  She fell at last;

  Pleasure past and anguish past,

  Is it death or is it life?

  Life out of death.

  That night long Lizzie watched by her,

  Counted her pulse’s flagging stir,

  Felt for her breath,

  Held water to her lips, and cooled her face

  With tears and fanning leaves:

  But when the first birds chirped about their eaves,

  And early reapers plodded to the place

  Of golden sheaves,

  And dew-wet grasss

  Bowed in the morning winds so brisk to pass,

  And new buds with new day

  Opened of cup-like lilies on the stream,

  Laura awoke as from a dream,

  Laughed in the innocent old way,

  Hugged Lizzie but not twice or thrice;

  Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,

  Her breath was sweet as May

  And light danced in her eyes.

  Days, weeks, months, years,

  Afterwards, when both were wives

  With children of their own;

  Their mother-hearts beset with fears,

  Their lives bound up in tender lives;

  Laura would call the little ones

  And tell them of her early prime,

  Those pleasant days long gone

  Of not-returning time:

  Would talk about the haunted glen,

  The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men,

  Their fruits like honey to the throat

  But poison in the blood

  (Men sell not such in any town):

  Would tell them how her sister stood

  In deadly peril to do her good,

  And win the fiery antidote:

  Then joining hands to little hands

  Would bid them cling together,

  “For there is no friend like a sister

  In calm or stormy weather;

  To cheer one o
n the tedious way,

  To fetch one if one goes astray,

  To lift one if one totters down,

  To strengthen whilst one stands.”

  1862

  The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde

  MARY DE MORGAN

  Once there lived a King, whose wife was dead, but who had a most beautiful daughter—so beautiful that every one thought she must be good as well, instead of which the Princess was really very wicked, and practised witchcraft and black magic, which she had learned from an old witch who lived in a hut on the side of a lonely mountain. This old witch was wicked and hideous, and no one but the King’s daughter knew that she lived there; but at night, when every one else was asleep, the Princess, whose name was Fiorimonde, used to visit her by stealth to learn sorcery. It was only the witch’s arts which had made Fiorimonde so beautiful that there was no one like her in the world, and in return the Princess helped her with all her tricks, and never told any one she was there.

  The time came when the King began to think he should like his daughter to marry, so he summoned his council and said, “We have no son to reign after our death, so we had best seek for a suitable prince to marry to our royal daughter, and then, when we are too old, he shall be king in our stead.” And all the council said he was very wise, and it would be well for the Princess to marry. So heralds were sent to all the neighbouring kings and princes to say that the King would choose a husband for the Princess, who should be king after him. But when Fiorimonde heard this she wept with rage, for she knew quite well that if she had a husband he would find out how she went to visit the old witch, and would stop her practising magic, and then she would lose her beauty.

  When night came, and every one in the palace was fast asleep, the Princess went to her bedroom window and softly opened it. Then she took from her pocket a handful of peas and held them out of the window and chirruped low, and there flew down from the roof a small brown bird and sat upon her wrist and began to eat the peas. No sooner had it swallowed them than it began to grow and grow and grow till it was so big that the Princess could not hold it, but let it stand on the window-sill, and still it grew and grew and grew till it was as large as an ostrich. Then the Princess climbed out of the window and seated herself on the bird’s back, and at once it flew straight away over the tops of the trees till it came to the mountain where the old witch dwelt, and stopped in front of the door of her hut.

  The Princess jumped off, and muttered some words through the keyhole, when a croaking voice from within called:

  “Why do you come to-night? Have I not told you I wished to be left alone for thirteen nights; why do you disturb me?”

  “But I beg of you to let me in,” said the Princess, “for I am in trouble and want your help.”

  “Come in then,” said the voice; and the door flew open, and the Princess trod into the hut, in the middle of which, wrapped in a grey cloak which almost hid her, sat the witch. Princess Fiorimonde sat down near her, and told her, her story. How the King wished her to marry, and had sent word to the neighbouring princes, that they might make offers for her.

  “This is truly bad hearing,” croaked the witch, “but we shall beat them yet; and you must deal with each Prince as he comes. Would you like them to become dogs, to come at your call, or birds, to fly in the air, and sing of your beauty, or will you make them all into beads, the beads of such a necklace as never woman wore before, so that they may rest upon your neck, and you may take them with you always.”

  “The necklace! the necklace!” cried the Princess, clapping her hands with joy. “That will be best of all, to sling them upon a string and wear them round my throat. Little will the courtiers know whence come my new jewels.”

  “But this is a dangerous play,” quoth the witch, “for, unless you are very careful, you yourself may become a bead and hang upon the string with the others, and there you will remain till some one cuts the string, and draws you off.”

  “Nay, never fear,” said the Princess, “I will be careful, only tell me what to do, and I will have great princes and kings to adorn me, and all their greatness shall not help them.”

  Then the witch dipped her hand into a black bag which stood on the ground beside her, and drew out a long gold thread.

  The ends were joined together, but no one could see the joins, and however much you pulled, it would not break. It would easily go over Fiorimonde’s head, and the witch slipped it on her neck saying:

  “Now mind, while this hangs here you are safe enough, but if once you join your fingers around the string you too will meet the fate of your lovers, and hang upon it yourself. As for the kings and princes who would marry you, all you have to do is to make them close their fingers around the chain, and at once they will be strung upon it as bright hard beads, and there they shall remain, till it is cut and they drop off.”

  “This is really delightful,” cried the Princess; “and I am already quite impatient for the first to come that I may try.”

  “And now,” said the witch, “since you are here, and there is yet time, we will have a dance, and I will summon the guests.” So saying, she took from a corner a drum and a pair of drum-sticks, and going to the door, began to beat upon it. It made a terrible rattling. In a moment came flying through the air all sorts of forms. There were little dark elves with long tails, and goblins who chattered and laughed, and other witches who rode on broom-sticks. There was one wicked fairy in the form of a large cat, with bright green eyes, and another came sliding in like a long shining viper.

  Then, when all had arrived, the witch stopped drumming, and, going to the middle of the hut, stamped on the floor, and a trap-door opened in the ground. The old witch stepped through it, and led the way down a narrow dark passage, to a large underground chamber, and all her strange guests followed, and here they all danced and made merry in a terrible way, but at first sound of cock-crow all the guests disappeared with a whiff, and the Princess hastened up the dark passage again, and out of the hut to where her big bird still waited for her, and mounting its back she flew home in a trice. Then, when she had stepped in at her bedroom window, she poured into a cup from a small black bottle, a few drops of magic water, and gave it to the bird to drink, and as it sipped it grew smaller, and smaller, till at last it had quite regained its natural size, and hopped on to the roof as before, and the Princess shut her window, and got into bed, and fell asleep, and no one knew of her strange journey, or where she had been.

  Next day Fiorimonde declared to her father the King, that she was quite willing to wed any prince he should fix upon as a husband for her, at which he was much pleased, and soon after informed her, that a young king was coming from over the sea to be her husband. He was king of a large rich country, and would take back his bride with him to his home. He was called King Pierrot. Great preparations were made for his arrival, and the Princess was decked in her finest array to greet him, and when he came all the courtiers said, “This is truly a proper husband for our beautiful Princess,” for he was strong and handsome, with black hair, and eyes like sloes. King Pierrot was delighted with Fiorimonde’s beauty, and was happy as the day is long; and all things went merrily till the evening before the marriage. A great feast was held, at which the Princess looked lovelier than ever dressed in a red gown, the colour of the inside of a rose, but she wore no jewels or ornaments of any kind, save one shining gold string round her milk-white throat.

  When the feast was done, the Princess stepped from her golden chair at her father’s side, and walked softly into the garden, and stood under an elm-tree looking at the shining moon. In a few moments King Pierrot followed her, and stood beside her, looking at her and wondering at her beauty.

  “To-morrow, then, my sweet Princess, you will be my Queen, and share all I possess. What gift would you wish me to give you on our wedding day?”

  “I would have a necklace wrought of the finest gold and jewels to be found, and just the length of this gold cord which I wear around my throat,”
answered Princess Fiorimonde.

  “Why do you wear that cord?” asked King Pierrot; “it has no jewel nor ornament about it.”

  “Nay, but there is no cord like mine in all the world,” cried Fiorimonde, and her eyes sparkled wickedly as she spoke; “it is as light as a feather, but stronger than an iron chain. Take it in both hands and try to break it, that you may see how strong it is”; and King Pierrot took the cord in both hands to pull it hard; but no sooner were his fingers closed around it than he vanished like a puff of smoke, and on the cord appeared a bright, beautiful bead—so bright and beautiful as was never bead before—clear as crystal, but shining with all colours—green, blue, and gold.

  Princess Fiorimonde gazed down at it and laughed aloud.

  “Aha, my proud lover! are you there?” she cried with glee; “my necklace bids fair to beat all others in the world,” and she caressed the bead with the tips of her soft, white fingers, but was careful that they did not close around the string. Then she returned into the banqueting-hall, and spoke to the King.

  “Pray, sire,” said she, “send some one at once to find King Pierrot, for, as he was talking to me a minute ago, he suddenly left me, and I am afraid lest I may have given him offence, or perhaps he is ill.”

  The King desired that the servants should seek for King Pierrot all over the grounds, and seek him they did, but nowhere was he to be found, and the old King looked offended.

  “Doubtless he will be ready to-morrow in time for the wedding,” quoth he, “but we are not best pleased that he should treat us in this way.”

  Princess Fiorimonde had a little maid called Yolande. She was a bright-faced girl with merry brown eyes, but she was not beautiful like Fiorimonde, and she did not love her mistress, for she was afraid of her, and suspected her of her wicked ways. When she undressed her that night she noticed the gold cord, and the one bright bead upon it, and as she combed the Princess’s hair she looked over her shoulder into the looking-glass, and saw how she laughed, and how fondly she looked at the cord, and caressed the bead again and again with her fingers.

  “That is a wonderful bead on your Highness’s cord,” said Yolande, looking at its reflection in the mirror; “surely it must be a bridal gift from King Pierrot.”

  “And so it is, little Yolande,” cried Fiorimonde, laughing merrily; “and the best gift he could give me. But I think one bead alone looks ugly and ungainly; soon I hope I shall have another, and another, and another, all as beautiful as the first.”