She bent toward the child, and Ellen looked into her eyes. Such wonderful eyes they were. As she looked, Ellen seemed to lose herself in their clear depths. She lost all sense of where she was—even of the lady herself.
She never could tell afterward whether the lady spoke and told her the story, or whether she saw it mirrored in those eyes, or whether she was herself the little Princess Goldenhair living it all, but this was the fairy tale.
There were once a king and queen who had no children, though they greatly longed for them.
One day the queen was sitting at the window sewing, and the sunlight shone upon the golden thimble she wore, so that it fairly dazzled the eyes. "I wish," said the queen, "that I had a little daughter and that her hair was as golden as my thimble in the sun."
Soon after this a daughter was indeed born to the queen, and the hair upon her head was of pure gold, but in the hour that she was born the queen herself died.
As the little princess grew up, her hair was the wonder of all and because it was so beautiful she was always called the Princess Goldenhair or Goldilocks.
The king was prouder of his daughter's beauty than of all his treasures, and there was nothing he loved better than to see her unfasten her shining hair and shake it down about her, and then it was so long and bright that it covered her like a golden mantle.
But one day the king went hunting, and in the chase he rode so fast that at last he left all his followers behind.
He had reached a deep and lonely glade when suddenly his horse reared under him, and there, standing directly in his path was a beautiful woman dressed all in black. Her hair, too, was black as a raven's wing and her eyes were strangely bright. She stood looking at the king and she did not speak.
The king did not speak either, at first, for there was something in her look thatmade him ill at ease, even while he wondered at her beauty.
"Who are you?" he said at last; but she made no answer. Then he questioned her whence she came, but she was still silent. But when he asked her if she would go back to the palace with him she nodded her head. So the king took her up before him and rode home with her.
After that the stranger lived at the palace. She spoke little and when she did her voice was hoarse and croaking, but she was very beautiful, and the king loved her and made her his queen.
There were great rejoicings over the marriage; but Goldenhair wept and wept; she feared the stepmother with her black hair and her bright round eyes.
Nevertheless at first the new queen was kind enough to the child. But then, little by little, she began to show the hatred she felt toward her. After a while it was nothing but hard words and harder looks. Above all, she couldnot bear the sight of the princess's hair, but shuddered every time she saw it. After a while she had a dark hood made, and she obliged the princess to wear it, so that her hair might be hidden.
The child never dared to take off the hood by day, but every evening after the maids had left the scullery she would steal down there with a candle. It was very dark in the scullery, and the mice and beetles scuttled to and fro, but as Goldenhair opened the door she would say,
"Nimble mice that fear the light,Small, black beetles of the night,Shadows lurking here and there,I pray you fright not Goldenhair."
"Nimble mice that fear the light,Small, black beetles of the night,Shadows lurking here and there,I pray you fright not Goldenhair."
Then the mice and the beetles would noiselessly disappear in the cracks; the shadows would shrink into corners, and entering, Goldenhair would take off her hood, and shake down her hair to comb and brush its shining lengths. Then she would bind it up again and cover itwith her hood before she went up into the castle.
The stepmother knew nothing of this, but every day she grew bolder in her hate. She took from Goldenhair all the beautiful clothes and jewels that her father had had made for her and gave her instead things scarce better than those a kitchen wench might wear.
However the princess made no complaint, and the king her father did not even seem to notice it. It was as though the wicked queen had cast a spell over him so that he could see or think of no one but her.
One day when Goldenhair's heart was very heavy she wandered off by herself into the deep forest that lay all about the palace.
She had not gone far when her cloak caught upon a thorn-bush and was torn. When she saw the rent she was frightened, for she knew her cruel stepmother would make it an excuse for punishing her; and at the thought ofher helplessness the child threw herself down at the foot of a tree and began to weep.
Suddenly a voice beside her said, "Why do you weep so bitterly, Princess?"
Goldenhair looked up, and there, standing close beside her, was a fairy youth. He was very small, and was dressed all in green and silver. He had a cap upon his head, and about his neck was a chain, from which hung a jewel that sparkled brighter than a diamond.
Goldenhair gazed at him wonderingly. "I am weeping because I have torn my cloak," she answered, "and I am afraid my stepmother will punish me." And with that she began to sob again.
Then the fairy felt sorry for her, as he had never felt sorry for any one before. "Do not weep," he said, "and I may be able to help you."
With that he stepped to a toadstool close by, and, feeling under it, he drew out a toadstool thorn, invisible to mortal eyes. This he threaded with a strand ofspider-web silk, and then he placed it in Goldenhair's fingers. "Draw together the edges of the cloak where it is torn," he said, "and sew it with this."
The princess looked at her fingers, but she could see nothing. Still, she could feel the magic strand. Wondering, she drew the edges of the rent together,and began stitching with the invisible needle; and as she stitched, the torn edges twisted and wove together again, so that they became whole as they had been before.
When she had finished, the fairy knelt before her and lifted the edge of the cloak. "Look," he said; "now no one could know that it had ever been torn." And then immediately he vanished like a breath.
Goldenhair rubbed her eyes and looked about her. The forest was very still. There was not a living thing to be seen, not even a bird or a squirrel. She lifted her cloak and looked, but she could not see where it had been mended. Then suddenly she felt afraid, and, turning, she ran back to the castle as fast as she could.
All the rest of the day she thought and thought about the fairy, and wondered whether she had really seen him, but she could scarcely believe it.
The next night when it grew darkGoldenhair stole down as usual to the scullery to comb her hair. She made sure that no one was there, and then she took off her hood and shook down her locks. When she had done that, they almost covered her with their golden strands. She began to brush and comb them, and as she brushed she sang:—
"I comb my locks, I comb my locks!My father is a king;My stepmother has hair as blackAs any raven's wing."I comb my locks, I comb my locks!She bids me bind them tight;She makes me wear a sooty hoodTo hide them from her sight."I comb my locks, I comb my locks!Alas! that only hereI dare to lay my hood asideAnd brush them without fear."
"I comb my locks, I comb my locks!My father is a king;My stepmother has hair as blackAs any raven's wing.
"I comb my locks, I comb my locks!She bids me bind them tight;She makes me wear a sooty hoodTo hide them from her sight.
"I comb my locks, I comb my locks!Alas! that only hereI dare to lay my hood asideAnd brush them without fear."
Having brushed her hair until it shone, Goldenhair bound it up again, and covered its brightness with her hood. She took up her candle and was about to leavethe scullery when she heard a sound as of some one sighing sadly.
She listened, but all was still. "'Twas only the wind that sighed beneath the door," she said to herself, and again she was about to go when she heard the sighing once more, and this time she knew that it was not the wind. The sound came from the outer door of the scullery, the one that opened into the forest.
Goldenhair was frightened, but yet she could not think of any one being in distress without longing to help them. She crept over to the door and laid her ear against it. "Who is there?" she asked.
There was no answer, but she heard some one grieving softly on the other side of the door. Then all was still.
"Who is there?" repeated Goldenhair. "If it is some one in trouble, speak."
There was no answer, but a sigh so sad that it went to the heart. She hesitated no longer, but opened the door.
The draught of wind almost blew outher candle, but she put her hand around it to shelter it, and by its light she saw leaning against the doorway the same fairy she had seen in the forest.
The princess looked and wondered. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Did you come to look for me?"
"Alas," sighed the fairy, "I would that I had never seen you."
"Why do you say that?" asked the princess.
"Because if I had not seen you weeping in the forest I would not have broken the fairy laws, teaching you to mend your cloak with magic such as fairies alone should use. It is for this that sorrow has come upon me and I have been banished from the fairy court. Now I must journey out in the huge rough world like an outcast, until I have accomplished the task set me by the fairy queen for a punishment."
When Goldenhair heard this she was greatly troubled, for she felt that she was indeed the cause of it all.
"What is this task they have set you?" she asked in a trembling voice.
"It is to weave a net of magic gold; the net in whose meshes alone can be caught a wicked enchantress who has been haunting this forest. For a long time she has been darkening it with her wicked spells and now upon me has fallen the heavy task of ridding the forest of her."
"But is this magic gold so hard to find? You are a fairy and surely you should know where to seek it."
"Though I am as old as the oldest treeSuch gold I never yet did see.
"Though I am as old as the oldest treeSuch gold I never yet did see.
Only this much I know for this the queen told me; it is gold—
That lives and yet is not alive;That comes neither from earth nor water;Softer than silk and harder to weld than steel.""Gold that lives and yet is not alive;That comes neither from earth nor water;Softer than silk but harder to weld than steel"
That lives and yet is not alive;That comes neither from earth nor water;Softer than silk and harder to weld than steel."
"Gold that lives and yet is not alive;That comes neither from earth nor water;Softer than silk but harder to weld than steel"
the princess murmured softly to herself. Then suddenly she gave a cry of joy.Setting down the candle, she slipped off her hood and shook down her hair, so that it fell all about her, glittering in the candle-light. "Is not this the magic gold?" she cried. "See! It lives and yet it is not alive. It comes neither from the earth nor from the water, and it is softer than silk and yet all the hammers in the world could not weld one strand of it."
The fairy cried aloud in his wonder and admiration. "It is indeed the magic gold."
"Then take it,—take it and weave your net," cried Goldenhair.
With hands that trembled with eagerness she drew from her pocket a pair of golden scissors that had been her mother's. With these she clipped strand after strand of the shiny locks, and they fell at the fairy's feet; they lay there in a shining heap.
"Enough! enough!" he cried.
"Then, quick," said the princess, "let us begin to knot them into a net."
"No need of that," answered the fairy. "There is a quicker way than that." Drawing his fairy sword from its sheath, he struck it lightly upon the shining locks.
"Fold on fold,Magic gold,Into a net be knotted and rolled,"
"Fold on fold,Magic gold,Into a net be knotted and rolled,"
he cried. At his spell the silken locks began to twist themselves; they rolled into strands and knotted together in meshes until they were a golden net.
Suddenly the princess turned her head and looked behind her. She had heard a sound at the scullery door. The next moment it was thrown open, and there stood the stepmother, peering in with an evil look. Behind her was the king.
"Look," cried the queen, pointing at Goldenhair. "Is it not just as I told you? The girl knows that I hate the very sight of her hair, and that I gave her a hood to wear that I might not see it; yet at every chance she has she slipsaway to comb her locks and weave her wicked spells."
"Do you indeed dare to weave your spells against the queen?" cried the king angrily,—for he was under the enchantment of the wicked queen, and he believed all that she wished him to.
Goldenhair began to weep. "Alas!" she sobbed, "I know no spells, and I thought that if I came here to comb my hair she would never see it."
Suddenly the stepmother spied the scissors, which Goldenhair had let fall upon the floor. Stooping, she snatched them up. "Since you will heed nothing that I say, there is but one way left; your hair shall be shorn close to your head, even to the last lock."
But at this moment the fairy stepped forward from the shadow in which he had been standing. In the dark scullery he seemed to shine with light. "There is no need of that," he cried. "I know you, wicked enchantress; and the net hasalready been woven that shall break your evil spells."
The queen gave a hoarse cry and shrank back; but in a moment the fairy had caught up the net from the floor and cast it over her. It was in vain that she struggled; the net only drew closer and closer about her.
"Why, what is this?" cried the king, but the queen only croaked hoarsely in reply.
The fairy drew his sword and pointed it at her. "By the power of the magic net take your true shape, false queen," he cried. And then—it was no longer a woman who struggled in the net, but only a great black raven, with a curving beak and cruel, angry eyes. It struggled there a while, and then flew out into the dark forest, dragging the net with it, and croaking hoarsely as it went.
"Let her go," said the fairy, "for, whatever becomes of her, her power has now gone forever."
Suddenly there was a soft strain ofmusic, and the scullery was filled with rosy light. "They are coming, are coming for me," cried the fairy, and his face grew bright with joy. The next moment the fairy queen stood beside him, and with her were a great crowd of attendant fairies.
The banished elf sank upon his knee before her, but she raised him graciously.
"Your task has been well done," she said. "You have freed the forest from the evil magic that has been haunting it, and now you shall return to the fairy court; and not only this, but you shall be my favorite page and follow in my train."
Once more the fairy knelt before her to kiss her hand.
The queen turned to Goldenhair. "And you, dear child," she said, "you have suffered so much here,—leave it all. Come with us, and with one touch of my wand you shall become a fairy too."
But at this the king started forward. With the breaking of the evil spell all his former love for his little daughter hadreturned. "Do not leave me, Goldenhair," he cried.
"No," said Goldenhair to the fairy, "he is my father, and I may not leave him; he would be lonely without me, now that the queen has gone."
"Then, farewell," cried the fairies. "The forest calls us, and we have already lingered too long. Farewell, farewell, Goldenhair." So saying, they disappeared, the light and music fading with them.
They were never seen in the castle again; but often in the wood the princess would come upon them dancing in their fairy rings, or hear them call to her from flowers or clumps of fern, for they did not hide from her as they do from others.
Time went on, and many kings and princes sought the hand of Goldenhair in marriage; but she would have none of them.
At last the old king died, and then suddenly there appeared at the court atall and noble youth. All wondered at his beauty, but no one but Goldenhair knew that it was the fairy of the wood, who had become a mortal being for her sake.
She loved him and gave him her hand, and they were married; and after that they ruled the kingdom together in great peace and happiness.
Ellen looked about her. She was still standing in the golden room of the Queerbodies' house. Before her was the Fairy Tale, smiling down into her face with shining eyes. There, too, were the gander and the Queerbody.
"Is that the story?" the Queerbody asked.
Ellen clasped her hands. "Oh, yes," she cried, looking up into the Fairy Tale's face. "I'm sure you're the one. There were Goldenhair and the sooty hood and all. You 'll stay made up now, won't you?"
"Yes," answered the Story; "and more than that, I'm going back with you too."
Ellen gave a little cry of delight. She took the Story's hand in hers, and it was so smooth and white she laid her cheek against it, and then kissed it softly.
"But how about the rhyme?" asked the gander.
"Oh, yes; I'd forgotten to ask for that." Then Ellen told the Queerbody how she had promised Mother Goose that she would try to find a forgotten rhyme for her. The child couldn't tell the Queerbody exactly what the rhyme was, of course, because it was a forgotten one, but she explained as well as she could.
The Queerbody seemed to know which one she meant. "Oh, yes, I can easily make that over; but if I do, you must promise to remember it and say it sometimes after you go back."
Ellen was very willing to promise.
Then the Queerbody bent over another jar and took out some wondercluff. She patted and twisted and pulled, and then she set what she had made upon thefloor. It was a funny-looking little rhyme, with a brown belted coat and a pointed cap, and a broad grin on its fat, round face.
"Quank! quank!" cried the gander. "There he is again."
The Rhyme blinked and looked about him, and then he spoke, still grinning broadly.
"Hello! I guess I've been forgotten, haven't I? But somebody seems to have brought me back. Well, there's the old gander, same as ever." He ran over and caught hold of the gander's bridle. "Give me a ride?" he asked.
"Yes, I'm going to carry you back with me."
"Oh, goody, goody!" And the Rhyme hopped up and down as though its toes were made of rubber.
But Ellen looked anxious. "I wonder how we're all to get back," she said, with a glance at the Fairy Tale. "I don't believe the gander can carry us all."
"Oh, you're not going back with me," he answered. "The journey's too long for that, and there's an easier way."
"Yes, a much easier way," chimed in the Queerbody. "Why, it's so easy that sometimes I go home without even trying."
Ellen wondered. "Do you? And then you have to come all that long way to get here again?"
"No, it's shorter when you know the way. Sometimes I get back in a minute. But put your ear against the wall and listen."
Ellen put her ear against the golden wall. As she listened she gave a little gasp of amazement, and yet what she heard was not so very wonderful; it was only the voices of her mother and the seamstress talking quietly together in the sewing-room.
Presently the voices grew fainter. Ellen leaned harder against the wall to catch their tones. Then all in a moment the wall yielded to her weight,just as a snowdrift might, and she fell through it.
She put out her hands to save herself, and caught hold of something hard and solid; it was the shelf of the bookcase. She was back in her own familiar nursery. She looked about her. There was no sign of where she had come through, no break in wall or ceiling. With a little cry she leaned forward and thrust her hands back between the book-shelves. They touched only the hard, cold wall. The vines were only painted on the paper; they would not draw aside under her eager fingers.
As Ellen turned from the bookcase she saw the shape of the Fairy Tale standing between her and the window. She was sure she saw it. It smiled and waved its hand to her, and then it was gone like the fading of one's breath upon the window-pane.
"Dear Fairy Tale, where are you?" cried Ellen; but there was no reply.
Ellen waited a moment. "Fairy Tale!" she whispered.
Still silence.
Opening the door into the entry, the little girl ran down to the sewing-room as fast as she could. "Mamma, mamma!" she called.
She burst like a little whirlwind into the room where her mother and the seamstress were quietly at work, and threw herself into her mother's lap. "I've been having the queerest time," she cried excitedly; "and you never could guess where I've been; never."
"Wait," said her mother; "you'retumbling my work. And how excited you are, dear!"
She put aside her sewing, and took the little girl upon her lap. "Now, what have you been doing?"
Breathlessly and with flushing cheeks Ellen told her mother all about her journey and her strange adventures on her way to the Queerbodies' house.
The mother listened and wondered. "That was a wonderful dream, indeed," she said.
"A dream! Why, it wasn't a dream, mamma. It really happened. And then I saw the Fairy Tale after I came back. And then the Forgotten Story itself; I couldn't have dreamed all that, you know."
"But, my dear, it couldn't have been anything but a dream."
"Well, wait. I'm going to go down and tell grandmamma about it; and if it's the same story, then you know itmustbe true."
"Very well; only go down quietly, for she may not have wakened from her nap yet."
When Ellen peeped in through her grandmother's door, however, she saw the old lady sitting over in her rocking-chair near the window, knitting.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Yes, yes, come in, little Clara. I was just wondering where you and all the other children were."
The child drew up a little stool and sat down by her grandmother's knee. "Granny," she said, trying to speak quietly, "I think I know what happened to little Goldenhair now. Shall I tell you the story?"
"Yes, do, my dear."
So Ellen told her grandmother the story of Goldenhair.
The grandmother listened, smiling and nodding her head. After a while she grew so interested that she pushed her glasses up on top of her cap.
"Yes, yes, that is it. I didn't know anybody remembered that story any more, but that is the way I heard it when I was a child."
"Then it's true," cried the child triumphantly; "and I really did find the Queerbodies' house, and see them making stories."
"Ah, yes, I knew a Queerbody once, and she used to make stories;—verses, too. She was a lovely girl. It was long ago."
"And did she tell you all about the Queerbodies' house and the golden jars?"
But the grandmother shook her head. "It is a long time ago, and I forget. I am so old—so old, little Clara."
"I knew it was n't a dream," murmured the child; and as she sat there by her grandmother's knee she felt the Fairy Tale was there, smiling gently upon them both, even though no one could see her.
THE CHRISTMAS ANGELAS THE GOOSE FLIESNANCY RUTLEDGEIN THE GREEN FORESTWONDER TALES RETOLDTALES OF FOLK AND FAIRIESTALES OF WONDER AND MAGICFAIRY TALES FROM FAR AND NEAR