WILD ROBINA Scotch Fairy TaleRETOLD BY SOPHIE MAYIn the green valley of the Yarrow, near the castle-keep of Norham, dwelt an honest little family, whose only grief was an unhappy son, named Robin.Janet, with jimp form, bonnie eyes, and cherry cheeks, was the best of daughters; the boys, Sandie and Davie, were swift-footed, brave, kind, and obedient; but Robin, the youngest, had a stormy temper, and when his will was crossed he became as reckless as a reeling hurricane. Once, in a passion, he drove two of his father’s “kye,” or cattle, down a steep hill to their death. He seemed not to care for home or kindred, and often pierced the tender heart of his mother with sharp words. When she came at night, and “happed” the bed-clothes carefully about his form, and then stooped to kiss his nut-brown cheeks, he turned away with a frown, muttering: “Mither, let me be.”It was a sad case with Wild Robin, who seemed to have neither love nor conscience.“My heart is sair,” sighed his mother, “wi’ greeting over sich a son.”“He hates our auld cottage and our muckle wark,” said the poor father. “Ah, weel! I could a’maist wish the fairies had him for a season, to teach him better manners.”This the gudeman said heedlessly, little knowing there was any danger of Robin’s being carried away to Elf-land. Whether the fairies were at that instant listening under the eaves, will never be known; but it chanced, one day, that Wild Robin was sent across the moors to fetch the kye.“I’ll rin away,” thought the boy; “’t is hard indeed if ilka day a great lad like me must mind the kye. I’ll gae aff; and they’ll think me dead.”So he gaed, and he gaed, over round swelling hills, over old battle-fields, past the roofless ruins of houses whose walls were crowned with tall climbing grasses, till he came to a crystal sheet of water called St. Mary’s Loch. Here he paused to take breath. The sky was dull and lowering; but at his feet were yellow flowers, which shone, on that gray day, like streaks of sunshine.He threw himself wearily upon the grass, not heeding that he had chosen his couch within a little mossy circle known as a “fairy’s ring.” Wild Robin knew that the country people would say the fays had pressed that green circle with their light feet. He had heard all the Scottish lore of brownies, elves, will-o’-the-wisps and the strange water-kelpies, who shriek with eldritch laughter. He had been told that the Queen of the Fairies had coveted him from his birth, and would have stolen him away, only that, just as she was about to seize him from the cradle, he hadsneezed; and from that instant the fairy-spell was over, and she had no more control of him.Yet, in spite of all these stories, the boy was not afraid; and if he had been informed that any of the uncanny people were, even now, haunting his footsteps, he would not have believed it.“I see,” said Wild Robin, “the sun is drawing his nightcap over his eyes, and dropping asleep. I believe I’ll e’en take a nap mysel’, and see what comes o’ it.”In two minutes he had forgotten St. Mary’s Loch, the hills, the moors, the yellow flowers. He heard, or fancied he heard, his sister Janet calling him home.“And what have ye for supper?” he muttered between his teeth.“Parritch and milk,” answered the lassie gently.“Parritch and milk! Whist! say nae mair! Lang, lang may ye wait for Wild Robin: he’ll not gae back for oatmeal parritch!”Next a sad voice fell on his ear.“Mither’s; and she mourns me dead!” thought he; but it was only the far-off village-bell, which sounded like the echo of music he had heard lang syne, but might never hear again.“D’ ye think I’m not alive?” tolled the bell. “I sit all day in my little wooden temple, brooding over the sins of the parish.”“A brazen lie!” cried Robin.“Nay, the truth, as I’m a living soul! Wae worth ye, Robin Telfer: ye think yersel’ hardly used. Say, have your brithers softer beds than yours? Is your ain father served with larger potatoes or creamier buttermilk? Whose mither sae kind as yours, ungrateful chiel? Gae to Elf-land, Wild Robin; and dool and wae follow ye! dool and wae follow ye!”The round yellow sun had dropped behind the hills; the evening breezes began to blow; and nowcould be heard the faint trampling of small hoofs, and the tinkling of tiny bridle-bells: the fairies were trooping over the ground. First of all rode the Queen.“Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,Her mantle o’ the velvet fine;At ilka tress of her horse’s maneHung fifty silver bells and nine.”But Wild Robin’s closed eyes saw nothing: his sleep-sealed ears heard nothing. The Queen of the fairies dismounted, stole up to him, and laid her soft fingers on his cheeks.“Here is a little man after my ain heart,” said she: “I like his knitted brow, and the downward curve of his lips. Knights, lift him gently, set him on a red-roan steed, and waft him away to Fairy-land.”Wild Robin was lifted as gently as a brown leaf borne by the wind; he rode as softly as if the red-roan steed had been saddled with satin, and shod with velvet. It even may be that the faint tinkling of the bridle-bells lulled him into a deeper slumber; for when he awoke it was morning in Fairy-land.Robin sprang from his mossy couch, and stared about him. Where was he? He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Dreaming, no doubt; but what meant all these nimble little beings bustling hither and thither in hot haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallow’s nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tip-toe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, dwarfish little brownies toward him.“I ken I’m talking in my sleep,” said the lad; “but can ye tell me what dell is this, and how I chanced to be in it?”The brownie might or might not have heard; but, at any rate, he deigned no reply, and went on with his task, which was pounding seeds in a stone mortar.“Am I Robin Telfer, of the Valley of Yarrow, and yet canna shake aff my silly dreams?”“Weel, my lad,” quoth the Queen of the Fairies, giving him a smart tap with her wand, “stir yersel’, and be at work; for naebody idles in Elf-land.”Bewildered Robin ventured a look at the little Queen. By daylight she seemed somewhat sleepy and tired; and was withal so tiny, that he might almost have taken her between his thumb and finger, and twirled her above his head; yet she poised herself before him on a mullein-stalk and looked every inch a queen. Robin found her gaze oppressive; for her eyes were hard, and cold, and gray, as if they had been little orbs of granite.“Get ye to work, Wild Robin!”“What to do?” meekly asked the boy, hungrily glancing at a few kernels of rye which had rolled out of one of the brownie’s mortars.“Are ye hungry, my laddie? Touch a grain of rye if ye dare! Shell these dry beans; and if so be ye’re starving, eat as many as ye can boil in an acorn-cup.”With these words she gave the boy a withered bean-pod, and, summoning a meek little brownie, bade him see that the lad did not over-fill the acorn-cup, and that he did not so much as peck at a grain of rye. Then glancing sternly at her prisoner, she withdrew, sweeping after her the long train of her green robe.The dull days crept by, and still there seemed no hope that Wild Robin would ever escape from his beautiful but detested prison. He had no wings, poor laddie; and he could neither become invisible nor draw himself through a keyhole bodily.It is true, he had mortal companions: many chubby babies; many bright-eyed boys and girls, whose distracted parents were still seeking them, far and wide, upon the earth. It would almost seem that the wonders of Fairy-land might make the little prisoners happy. There were countless treasures to be had for the taking, and the very dust in the little streets was precious with specks of gold: but the poor children shivered for the want of a mother’s love; they all pined for the dear home-people. If a certain task seemed to them particularly irksome, the heartless Queen was sure to find it out, and oblige them to perform it, day after day. If they disliked any article of food, that, and no other, were they forced to eat, or else starve.Wild Robin, loathing his withered beans and unsalted broths, longed intensely for one little breath of fragrant steam from the toothsome parritch on his father’s table, one glance at a roasted potato. He was homesick for the gentle sister he had neglected, the rough brothers whose cheeks he had pelted black and blue; and yearned for the very chinks in the walls, the very thatch on the home-roof.Gladly would he have given every fairy flower, at the root of which clung a lump of gold ore, if he might have had his own coverlet “happed” about him once more by his gentle mother.“here is a little man after my ain heart,”said the queen of the fairies“Mither,” he whispered in his dreams, “myshoon are worn, and my feet bleed; but I’ll soon creep hame, if I can. Keep the parritch warm for me.”Robin was as strong as a mountain-goat; and his strength was put to the task of threshing rye, grinding oats and corn, or drawing water from a brook.Every night, troops of gay fairies and plodding brownies stole off on a visit to the upper world, leaving Robin and his companions in ever-deeper despair. Poor Robin! he was fain to sing—“Oh, that my father had ne’er on me smiled!Oh, that my mother had ne’er to me sung!Oh, that my cradle had never been rocked,But that I had died when I was young.”Now, there was one good-natured brownie who pitied Robin. When he took a journey to earth with his fellow-brownies, he often threshed rye for the laddie’s father, or churned butter in his good mother’s dairy, unseen and unsuspected. If the little creature had been watched, and paid for these good offices, he would have left the farmhouse forever in sore displeasure.To homesick Robin he brought news of the family who mourned him as dead. He stole a silky tress of Janet’s fair hair, and wondered to see the boy weep over it; for brotherly affection is a sentiment which never yet penetrated the heart of a brownie. The dull little sprite would gladly have helped the poor lad to his freedom, but told him that only on one night of the year was there the least hope, and that was on Hallow-e’en, when the whole nation of fairies ride in procession through the streets of earth.So Robin was instructed to spin a dream, which the kind brownie would hum in Janet’s ear while she slept. By this means the lassie would not only learn that her brother was in the power of the elves, but would also learn how to release him.Accordingly, the night before Hallow-e’en, the bonnie Janet dreamed that the long-lost Robin was living in Elf-land, and that he was to pass through the streets with a cavalcade of fairies. But, alas! how should even a sister know him in the dim starlight, among the passing troops of elfish and mortal riders? The dream assured her that she might let the first company go by, and the second; but Robin would be one of the third.The full directions as to how she should act were given in poetical form, as follows:“First let pass the black, Janet,And syne let pass the brown;But grip ye to the milk-white steed,And pull the rider down.ForIride on the milk-white steed,And aye nearest the town:Because I was a christened ladThey gave me that renown.My right hand will be gloved, Janet;My left hand will be bare;And these the tokens I give thee,No doubt I will be there.They’ll shape me in your arms, Janet,A toad, snake, and an eel;But hold me fast, nor let me gang,As you do love me weel.They’ll shape me in your arms, Janet,A dove, bat, and a swan:Cast your green mantle over me,I’ll be myself again.”The good sister Janet, far from remembering any of the old sins of her brother, wept for joy to know that he was yet among the living. She told no one of her strange dream; but hastened secretly to the Miles Cross, saw the strange cavalcade pricking through the greenwood, and pulled down the rider on the milk-white steed, holding him fast through all his changing shapes. But when she had thrown her green mantle over him, and clasped him in her arms as her own brother Robin, the angry voice of the Fairy Queen was heard.“Up then spake the Queen of Fairies,Out of a blush of rye:‘You’ve taken away the bonniest ladIn all my companie.‘Had I but had the wit, yestreen,That I have learned to-day,I’d pinned the sister to her bedEre he’d been won away!’”However, it was too late now. Wild Robin was safe, and the elves had lost their power over him forever. His forgiving parents and his lead-hearted brothers welcomed him home with more than the old love.So grateful and happy was the poor laddie that he nevermore grumbled at his oatmeal parritch, or minded his kye with a scowling brow.But to the end of his days, when he heard mention of fairies and brownies, his mind wandered off in a mizmaze. He died in peace, and was buried on the banks of the Yarrow.THE STORY OF MERLINMerlin was a King in early Britain; he was also an Enchanter. No one knows who were his parents, or where he was born; but it is said that he was brought in by the white waves of the sea, and that, at the last, to the sea he returned.When Merlin was King of Britain, it was a delightful island of flowery meadows. His subjects were fairies, and they spent their lives in singing, playing, and enjoyment. The Prime Minister of Merlin was a tame wolf. Part of his kingdom was beneath the waves, and his subjects there were the mermaids. Here, too, everyone was happy, and the only want they ever felt was of the full light of the sun, which, coming to them through the water, was but faint and cast no shadow. Here was Merlin’s workshop, where he forged the enchanted sword Excalibur. This was given to King Arthur when he began to reign, and after his life was through it was flung into the ocean again, where it will remain until he returns to rule over a better kingdom.Merlin was King Arthur’s trusted counselor. He knew the past, present, and the future; he could foretell the result of a battle, and he had courage to rebuke even the bravest Knights for cowardice. On one occasion, when the battle seemed to be lost, he rode in among the enemy on a great white horse, carrying a banner with a golden dragon, which poured forth flaming fire from its throat. Because of this dragon, which became King Arthur’s emblem, Arthur was known as Pendragon, and always wore a golden dragon on the front of his helmet.Merlin was always fond of elfin tricks. He would disguise himself—now as a blind boy, again as an old witch, and once more as a dwarf. There was a song about him all over Britain, which began as follows:“Merlin, Merlin, where art thou goingSo early in the day, with thy black dog?Oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi!Oi! oi! oi! oi! oi!”This is the way the early British explained the gathering and arrangement of the vast stones of Stonehenge. After a famous battle had been won there, Merlin said: “I will now cause a thing to be done that will endure to the world’s end.” So he bade the King, who was the father of King Arthur, to send ships and men to Ireland. Here he showed him stones so great that no man could handle, but by his magic art he placed them upon the boats and they were borne to England. Again by his magic he showed how to transport them across the land; and after they were gathered he had them set on end, “because,” he said, “they would look fairer than as if they were lying down.”Now, strange to say, the greatest friend of Merlin was a little girl. Her name was Vivian; she was twelve years old, and she was the daughter of King Dionas. In order to make her acquaintance, Merlin changed himself into a young Squire, and when she asked him who was his master, he said: “It is one who has taught me so much that I could here erect for you a castle, and I could make many people outside to attack it and inside to defend it.”“I wish I could thus disport myself,” answered Vivian. “I would always love you if you could show me such wonders.”Then Merlin described a circle with his wand, and went back and sat down beside her. Within a few hours the castle was before her in the wood, Knights and ladies were singing in its courtyard, and an orchard in blossom grew about.“Have I done what I promised?” asked Merlin.“Fair, sweet friend,” said she, “you have done so much for me that I am always yours.”Vivian became like a daughter to the old magician, and he taught her many of the most wonderful things that any mortal heart could think of—things past, things that were done, and part of what was to come.You have been told in Tennyson that Vivian learned so many of Merlin’s enchantments that in his old age she took advantage of him and put him to sleep forever in the hollow of a tree. But the older legend gives us better news. He showed her how to make a tower without walls so they might dwell there together alone in peace. This tower was “so strong that it may never be undone while the world endures.” After it was finished he fell asleep with his head in her lap, and she wove a spell nine times around his head so that he might rest more peacefully.But the old enchanter does not sleep forever. Here in the forest of Broceliande, on a magic island, Merlin dwells with his nine bards, and only Vivian can come or go through the magic walls. It was toward this tower, so the legends say, that, after the passing of King Arthur, Merlin was last seen by some Irish monks, sailing away westward, with the maiden Vivian, in a boat of crystal, beneath the sunset sky.Courtesy of A. Lofthousethe willow patternThe plate of which this is a photograph was brought to America from England about 1875; it had at that time been in the possession of one family for a hundred years.Japanese And Other Oriental TalesTHE CUB’S TRIUMPHOnce upon a time there lived in a forest a badger and a mother fox with one little Cub.There were no other beasts in the wood, because the hunters had killed them all with bows and arrows, or by setting snares. The deer, and the wild boar, the hares, the weasels, and the stoats—even the bright little squirrels—had been shot, or had fallen into traps. At last, only the badger and the fox, with her young one, were left, and they were starving, for they dared not venture from their holes for fear of the traps.They did not know what to do, or where to turn for food. At last the badger said:“I have thought of a plan. I will pretend to be dead. You must change yourself into a man, and take me into the town and sell me. With the money you get for me, you must buy food and bring it into the forest. When I get a chance I will run away, and come back to you, and we will eat our dinner together. Mind you wait for me, and don’t eat any of it until I come. Next week it will be your turn to be dead, and my turn to sell—do you see?”The fox thought this plan would do very well; so, as soon as the badger had lain down and pretended to be dead, she said to her little Cub:“Be sure not to come out of the hole until I come back. Be very good and quiet, and I will soon bring you some nice dinner.”She then changed herself into a wood-cutter, took the badger by the heels and swung him over her shoulders, and trudged off into the town. There she sold the badger for a fair price, and with the money bought some fish, sometofu,[M]and some vegetables. She then ran back to the forest as fast as she could, changed herself into a fox again, and crept into her hole to see if little Cub was all right. Little Cub was there, safe enough, but very hungry, and wanted to begin upon thetofuat once.“No, no,” said the mother fox. “Fair play’s a jewel. We must wait for the badger.”Soon the badger arrived, quite out of breath with running so fast.“I hope you haven’t been eating any of the dinner,” he panted. “I could not get away sooner. The man you sold me to brought his wife to look at me, and boasted how cheap he had bought me. You should have asked twice as much. At last they left me alone, and then I jumped up and ran away as fast as I could.”The badger, the fox, and the Cub now sat down to dinner, and had a fine feast, the badger taking care to get the best bits for himself.Some days after, when all the food was finished, and they had begun to get hungry again, the badger said to the fox:“Now it’s your turn to die.” So the fox pretended to be dead, and the badger changed himself into a hunter, shouldered the fox, and went off to the town, where he made a good bargain, and sold her for a nice little sum of money.You have seen, already that the badger was greedy and selfish. What do you think he did now? He wished to have all the money, and all the food it would buy for himself, so he whispered to the man who had bought the fox:“That fox is only pretending to be dead; take care he doesn’t run away.”“We’ll soon settle that,” said the man, and he knocked the fox on the head with a big stick, and killed her.The badger next laid out the money in buying all the nice things he could think of. He carried them off to the forest, and there ate them all up himself, without giving one bit to the poor little Cub, who was all alone, crying for its mother, very sad, and very hungry.Poor little motherless Cub! But, being a clever little fox, he soon began to put two and two together, and at last felt quite sure that the badger had, in some way, caused the loss of his mother.He made up his mind that he would punish the badger; and, as he was not big enough or strong enough to do it by force, he was obliged to tryanother plan.He did not let the badger see how angry he was with him, but said in a friendly way:“Let us have a game of changing ourselves into men. If you can change yourself so cleverly that I cannot find you out, you will have won the game; but, if I change myself so that you cannot find me out, then I shall have won the game. I will begin, if you like; and, you may be sure, I shall turn myself into somebody very grand while I am about it.”The badger agreed. So then, instead of changing himself at all, the cunning little Cub just went and hid himself behind a tree, and watched to see what would happen. Presently there came along the bridge leading into the town a nobleman, seated in a sedan-chair, a great crowd of servants and men at arms following him.The badger was quite sure that this must be the fox, so he ran up to the sedan-chair, put in his head, and cried:“I’ve found you out! I’ve won the game!”“A badger! A badger! Off with his head,” cried the nobleman.So one of the retainers cut off the badger’s head with one blow of his sharp sword, the little Cub all the time laughing unseen behind the tree.
A Scotch Fairy Tale
RETOLD BY SOPHIE MAY
In the green valley of the Yarrow, near the castle-keep of Norham, dwelt an honest little family, whose only grief was an unhappy son, named Robin.
Janet, with jimp form, bonnie eyes, and cherry cheeks, was the best of daughters; the boys, Sandie and Davie, were swift-footed, brave, kind, and obedient; but Robin, the youngest, had a stormy temper, and when his will was crossed he became as reckless as a reeling hurricane. Once, in a passion, he drove two of his father’s “kye,” or cattle, down a steep hill to their death. He seemed not to care for home or kindred, and often pierced the tender heart of his mother with sharp words. When she came at night, and “happed” the bed-clothes carefully about his form, and then stooped to kiss his nut-brown cheeks, he turned away with a frown, muttering: “Mither, let me be.”
It was a sad case with Wild Robin, who seemed to have neither love nor conscience.
“My heart is sair,” sighed his mother, “wi’ greeting over sich a son.”
“He hates our auld cottage and our muckle wark,” said the poor father. “Ah, weel! I could a’maist wish the fairies had him for a season, to teach him better manners.”
This the gudeman said heedlessly, little knowing there was any danger of Robin’s being carried away to Elf-land. Whether the fairies were at that instant listening under the eaves, will never be known; but it chanced, one day, that Wild Robin was sent across the moors to fetch the kye.
“I’ll rin away,” thought the boy; “’t is hard indeed if ilka day a great lad like me must mind the kye. I’ll gae aff; and they’ll think me dead.”
So he gaed, and he gaed, over round swelling hills, over old battle-fields, past the roofless ruins of houses whose walls were crowned with tall climbing grasses, till he came to a crystal sheet of water called St. Mary’s Loch. Here he paused to take breath. The sky was dull and lowering; but at his feet were yellow flowers, which shone, on that gray day, like streaks of sunshine.
He threw himself wearily upon the grass, not heeding that he had chosen his couch within a little mossy circle known as a “fairy’s ring.” Wild Robin knew that the country people would say the fays had pressed that green circle with their light feet. He had heard all the Scottish lore of brownies, elves, will-o’-the-wisps and the strange water-kelpies, who shriek with eldritch laughter. He had been told that the Queen of the Fairies had coveted him from his birth, and would have stolen him away, only that, just as she was about to seize him from the cradle, he hadsneezed; and from that instant the fairy-spell was over, and she had no more control of him.
Yet, in spite of all these stories, the boy was not afraid; and if he had been informed that any of the uncanny people were, even now, haunting his footsteps, he would not have believed it.
“I see,” said Wild Robin, “the sun is drawing his nightcap over his eyes, and dropping asleep. I believe I’ll e’en take a nap mysel’, and see what comes o’ it.”
In two minutes he had forgotten St. Mary’s Loch, the hills, the moors, the yellow flowers. He heard, or fancied he heard, his sister Janet calling him home.
“And what have ye for supper?” he muttered between his teeth.
“Parritch and milk,” answered the lassie gently.
“Parritch and milk! Whist! say nae mair! Lang, lang may ye wait for Wild Robin: he’ll not gae back for oatmeal parritch!”
Next a sad voice fell on his ear.
“Mither’s; and she mourns me dead!” thought he; but it was only the far-off village-bell, which sounded like the echo of music he had heard lang syne, but might never hear again.
“D’ ye think I’m not alive?” tolled the bell. “I sit all day in my little wooden temple, brooding over the sins of the parish.”
“A brazen lie!” cried Robin.
“Nay, the truth, as I’m a living soul! Wae worth ye, Robin Telfer: ye think yersel’ hardly used. Say, have your brithers softer beds than yours? Is your ain father served with larger potatoes or creamier buttermilk? Whose mither sae kind as yours, ungrateful chiel? Gae to Elf-land, Wild Robin; and dool and wae follow ye! dool and wae follow ye!”
The round yellow sun had dropped behind the hills; the evening breezes began to blow; and nowcould be heard the faint trampling of small hoofs, and the tinkling of tiny bridle-bells: the fairies were trooping over the ground. First of all rode the Queen.
“Her skirt was of the grass-green silk,Her mantle o’ the velvet fine;At ilka tress of her horse’s maneHung fifty silver bells and nine.”
But Wild Robin’s closed eyes saw nothing: his sleep-sealed ears heard nothing. The Queen of the fairies dismounted, stole up to him, and laid her soft fingers on his cheeks.
“Here is a little man after my ain heart,” said she: “I like his knitted brow, and the downward curve of his lips. Knights, lift him gently, set him on a red-roan steed, and waft him away to Fairy-land.”
Wild Robin was lifted as gently as a brown leaf borne by the wind; he rode as softly as if the red-roan steed had been saddled with satin, and shod with velvet. It even may be that the faint tinkling of the bridle-bells lulled him into a deeper slumber; for when he awoke it was morning in Fairy-land.
Robin sprang from his mossy couch, and stared about him. Where was he? He rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Dreaming, no doubt; but what meant all these nimble little beings bustling hither and thither in hot haste? What meant these pearl-bedecked caves, scarcely larger than swallow’s nests? these green canopies, overgrown with moss? He pinched himself, and gazed again. Countless flowers nodded to him, and seemed, like himself, on tip-toe with curiosity, he thought. He beckoned one of the busy, dwarfish little brownies toward him.
“I ken I’m talking in my sleep,” said the lad; “but can ye tell me what dell is this, and how I chanced to be in it?”
The brownie might or might not have heard; but, at any rate, he deigned no reply, and went on with his task, which was pounding seeds in a stone mortar.
“Am I Robin Telfer, of the Valley of Yarrow, and yet canna shake aff my silly dreams?”
“Weel, my lad,” quoth the Queen of the Fairies, giving him a smart tap with her wand, “stir yersel’, and be at work; for naebody idles in Elf-land.”
Bewildered Robin ventured a look at the little Queen. By daylight she seemed somewhat sleepy and tired; and was withal so tiny, that he might almost have taken her between his thumb and finger, and twirled her above his head; yet she poised herself before him on a mullein-stalk and looked every inch a queen. Robin found her gaze oppressive; for her eyes were hard, and cold, and gray, as if they had been little orbs of granite.
“Get ye to work, Wild Robin!”
“What to do?” meekly asked the boy, hungrily glancing at a few kernels of rye which had rolled out of one of the brownie’s mortars.
“Are ye hungry, my laddie? Touch a grain of rye if ye dare! Shell these dry beans; and if so be ye’re starving, eat as many as ye can boil in an acorn-cup.”
With these words she gave the boy a withered bean-pod, and, summoning a meek little brownie, bade him see that the lad did not over-fill the acorn-cup, and that he did not so much as peck at a grain of rye. Then glancing sternly at her prisoner, she withdrew, sweeping after her the long train of her green robe.
The dull days crept by, and still there seemed no hope that Wild Robin would ever escape from his beautiful but detested prison. He had no wings, poor laddie; and he could neither become invisible nor draw himself through a keyhole bodily.
It is true, he had mortal companions: many chubby babies; many bright-eyed boys and girls, whose distracted parents were still seeking them, far and wide, upon the earth. It would almost seem that the wonders of Fairy-land might make the little prisoners happy. There were countless treasures to be had for the taking, and the very dust in the little streets was precious with specks of gold: but the poor children shivered for the want of a mother’s love; they all pined for the dear home-people. If a certain task seemed to them particularly irksome, the heartless Queen was sure to find it out, and oblige them to perform it, day after day. If they disliked any article of food, that, and no other, were they forced to eat, or else starve.
Wild Robin, loathing his withered beans and unsalted broths, longed intensely for one little breath of fragrant steam from the toothsome parritch on his father’s table, one glance at a roasted potato. He was homesick for the gentle sister he had neglected, the rough brothers whose cheeks he had pelted black and blue; and yearned for the very chinks in the walls, the very thatch on the home-roof.
Gladly would he have given every fairy flower, at the root of which clung a lump of gold ore, if he might have had his own coverlet “happed” about him once more by his gentle mother.
“here is a little man after my ain heart,”said the queen of the fairies
“Mither,” he whispered in his dreams, “myshoon are worn, and my feet bleed; but I’ll soon creep hame, if I can. Keep the parritch warm for me.”
Robin was as strong as a mountain-goat; and his strength was put to the task of threshing rye, grinding oats and corn, or drawing water from a brook.
Every night, troops of gay fairies and plodding brownies stole off on a visit to the upper world, leaving Robin and his companions in ever-deeper despair. Poor Robin! he was fain to sing—
“Oh, that my father had ne’er on me smiled!Oh, that my mother had ne’er to me sung!Oh, that my cradle had never been rocked,But that I had died when I was young.”
Now, there was one good-natured brownie who pitied Robin. When he took a journey to earth with his fellow-brownies, he often threshed rye for the laddie’s father, or churned butter in his good mother’s dairy, unseen and unsuspected. If the little creature had been watched, and paid for these good offices, he would have left the farmhouse forever in sore displeasure.
To homesick Robin he brought news of the family who mourned him as dead. He stole a silky tress of Janet’s fair hair, and wondered to see the boy weep over it; for brotherly affection is a sentiment which never yet penetrated the heart of a brownie. The dull little sprite would gladly have helped the poor lad to his freedom, but told him that only on one night of the year was there the least hope, and that was on Hallow-e’en, when the whole nation of fairies ride in procession through the streets of earth.
So Robin was instructed to spin a dream, which the kind brownie would hum in Janet’s ear while she slept. By this means the lassie would not only learn that her brother was in the power of the elves, but would also learn how to release him.
Accordingly, the night before Hallow-e’en, the bonnie Janet dreamed that the long-lost Robin was living in Elf-land, and that he was to pass through the streets with a cavalcade of fairies. But, alas! how should even a sister know him in the dim starlight, among the passing troops of elfish and mortal riders? The dream assured her that she might let the first company go by, and the second; but Robin would be one of the third.
The full directions as to how she should act were given in poetical form, as follows:
“First let pass the black, Janet,And syne let pass the brown;But grip ye to the milk-white steed,And pull the rider down.
ForIride on the milk-white steed,And aye nearest the town:Because I was a christened ladThey gave me that renown.
My right hand will be gloved, Janet;My left hand will be bare;And these the tokens I give thee,No doubt I will be there.
They’ll shape me in your arms, Janet,A toad, snake, and an eel;But hold me fast, nor let me gang,As you do love me weel.
They’ll shape me in your arms, Janet,A dove, bat, and a swan:Cast your green mantle over me,I’ll be myself again.”
The good sister Janet, far from remembering any of the old sins of her brother, wept for joy to know that he was yet among the living. She told no one of her strange dream; but hastened secretly to the Miles Cross, saw the strange cavalcade pricking through the greenwood, and pulled down the rider on the milk-white steed, holding him fast through all his changing shapes. But when she had thrown her green mantle over him, and clasped him in her arms as her own brother Robin, the angry voice of the Fairy Queen was heard.
“Up then spake the Queen of Fairies,Out of a blush of rye:‘You’ve taken away the bonniest ladIn all my companie.
‘Had I but had the wit, yestreen,That I have learned to-day,I’d pinned the sister to her bedEre he’d been won away!’”
However, it was too late now. Wild Robin was safe, and the elves had lost their power over him forever. His forgiving parents and his lead-hearted brothers welcomed him home with more than the old love.
So grateful and happy was the poor laddie that he nevermore grumbled at his oatmeal parritch, or minded his kye with a scowling brow.
But to the end of his days, when he heard mention of fairies and brownies, his mind wandered off in a mizmaze. He died in peace, and was buried on the banks of the Yarrow.
Merlin was a King in early Britain; he was also an Enchanter. No one knows who were his parents, or where he was born; but it is said that he was brought in by the white waves of the sea, and that, at the last, to the sea he returned.
When Merlin was King of Britain, it was a delightful island of flowery meadows. His subjects were fairies, and they spent their lives in singing, playing, and enjoyment. The Prime Minister of Merlin was a tame wolf. Part of his kingdom was beneath the waves, and his subjects there were the mermaids. Here, too, everyone was happy, and the only want they ever felt was of the full light of the sun, which, coming to them through the water, was but faint and cast no shadow. Here was Merlin’s workshop, where he forged the enchanted sword Excalibur. This was given to King Arthur when he began to reign, and after his life was through it was flung into the ocean again, where it will remain until he returns to rule over a better kingdom.
Merlin was King Arthur’s trusted counselor. He knew the past, present, and the future; he could foretell the result of a battle, and he had courage to rebuke even the bravest Knights for cowardice. On one occasion, when the battle seemed to be lost, he rode in among the enemy on a great white horse, carrying a banner with a golden dragon, which poured forth flaming fire from its throat. Because of this dragon, which became King Arthur’s emblem, Arthur was known as Pendragon, and always wore a golden dragon on the front of his helmet.
Merlin was always fond of elfin tricks. He would disguise himself—now as a blind boy, again as an old witch, and once more as a dwarf. There was a song about him all over Britain, which began as follows:
“Merlin, Merlin, where art thou goingSo early in the day, with thy black dog?Oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi! oi!Oi! oi! oi! oi! oi!”
This is the way the early British explained the gathering and arrangement of the vast stones of Stonehenge. After a famous battle had been won there, Merlin said: “I will now cause a thing to be done that will endure to the world’s end.” So he bade the King, who was the father of King Arthur, to send ships and men to Ireland. Here he showed him stones so great that no man could handle, but by his magic art he placed them upon the boats and they were borne to England. Again by his magic he showed how to transport them across the land; and after they were gathered he had them set on end, “because,” he said, “they would look fairer than as if they were lying down.”
Now, strange to say, the greatest friend of Merlin was a little girl. Her name was Vivian; she was twelve years old, and she was the daughter of King Dionas. In order to make her acquaintance, Merlin changed himself into a young Squire, and when she asked him who was his master, he said: “It is one who has taught me so much that I could here erect for you a castle, and I could make many people outside to attack it and inside to defend it.”
“I wish I could thus disport myself,” answered Vivian. “I would always love you if you could show me such wonders.”
Then Merlin described a circle with his wand, and went back and sat down beside her. Within a few hours the castle was before her in the wood, Knights and ladies were singing in its courtyard, and an orchard in blossom grew about.
“Have I done what I promised?” asked Merlin.
“Fair, sweet friend,” said she, “you have done so much for me that I am always yours.”
Vivian became like a daughter to the old magician, and he taught her many of the most wonderful things that any mortal heart could think of—things past, things that were done, and part of what was to come.
You have been told in Tennyson that Vivian learned so many of Merlin’s enchantments that in his old age she took advantage of him and put him to sleep forever in the hollow of a tree. But the older legend gives us better news. He showed her how to make a tower without walls so they might dwell there together alone in peace. This tower was “so strong that it may never be undone while the world endures.” After it was finished he fell asleep with his head in her lap, and she wove a spell nine times around his head so that he might rest more peacefully.
But the old enchanter does not sleep forever. Here in the forest of Broceliande, on a magic island, Merlin dwells with his nine bards, and only Vivian can come or go through the magic walls. It was toward this tower, so the legends say, that, after the passing of King Arthur, Merlin was last seen by some Irish monks, sailing away westward, with the maiden Vivian, in a boat of crystal, beneath the sunset sky.
Courtesy of A. Lofthouse
the willow pattern
The plate of which this is a photograph was brought to America from England about 1875; it had at that time been in the possession of one family for a hundred years.
Japanese And Other Oriental Tales
Once upon a time there lived in a forest a badger and a mother fox with one little Cub.
There were no other beasts in the wood, because the hunters had killed them all with bows and arrows, or by setting snares. The deer, and the wild boar, the hares, the weasels, and the stoats—even the bright little squirrels—had been shot, or had fallen into traps. At last, only the badger and the fox, with her young one, were left, and they were starving, for they dared not venture from their holes for fear of the traps.
They did not know what to do, or where to turn for food. At last the badger said:
“I have thought of a plan. I will pretend to be dead. You must change yourself into a man, and take me into the town and sell me. With the money you get for me, you must buy food and bring it into the forest. When I get a chance I will run away, and come back to you, and we will eat our dinner together. Mind you wait for me, and don’t eat any of it until I come. Next week it will be your turn to be dead, and my turn to sell—do you see?”
The fox thought this plan would do very well; so, as soon as the badger had lain down and pretended to be dead, she said to her little Cub:
“Be sure not to come out of the hole until I come back. Be very good and quiet, and I will soon bring you some nice dinner.”
She then changed herself into a wood-cutter, took the badger by the heels and swung him over her shoulders, and trudged off into the town. There she sold the badger for a fair price, and with the money bought some fish, sometofu,[M]and some vegetables. She then ran back to the forest as fast as she could, changed herself into a fox again, and crept into her hole to see if little Cub was all right. Little Cub was there, safe enough, but very hungry, and wanted to begin upon thetofuat once.
“No, no,” said the mother fox. “Fair play’s a jewel. We must wait for the badger.”
Soon the badger arrived, quite out of breath with running so fast.
“I hope you haven’t been eating any of the dinner,” he panted. “I could not get away sooner. The man you sold me to brought his wife to look at me, and boasted how cheap he had bought me. You should have asked twice as much. At last they left me alone, and then I jumped up and ran away as fast as I could.”
The badger, the fox, and the Cub now sat down to dinner, and had a fine feast, the badger taking care to get the best bits for himself.
Some days after, when all the food was finished, and they had begun to get hungry again, the badger said to the fox:
“Now it’s your turn to die.” So the fox pretended to be dead, and the badger changed himself into a hunter, shouldered the fox, and went off to the town, where he made a good bargain, and sold her for a nice little sum of money.
You have seen, already that the badger was greedy and selfish. What do you think he did now? He wished to have all the money, and all the food it would buy for himself, so he whispered to the man who had bought the fox:
“That fox is only pretending to be dead; take care he doesn’t run away.”
“We’ll soon settle that,” said the man, and he knocked the fox on the head with a big stick, and killed her.
The badger next laid out the money in buying all the nice things he could think of. He carried them off to the forest, and there ate them all up himself, without giving one bit to the poor little Cub, who was all alone, crying for its mother, very sad, and very hungry.
Poor little motherless Cub! But, being a clever little fox, he soon began to put two and two together, and at last felt quite sure that the badger had, in some way, caused the loss of his mother.
He made up his mind that he would punish the badger; and, as he was not big enough or strong enough to do it by force, he was obliged to tryanother plan.
He did not let the badger see how angry he was with him, but said in a friendly way:
“Let us have a game of changing ourselves into men. If you can change yourself so cleverly that I cannot find you out, you will have won the game; but, if I change myself so that you cannot find me out, then I shall have won the game. I will begin, if you like; and, you may be sure, I shall turn myself into somebody very grand while I am about it.”
The badger agreed. So then, instead of changing himself at all, the cunning little Cub just went and hid himself behind a tree, and watched to see what would happen. Presently there came along the bridge leading into the town a nobleman, seated in a sedan-chair, a great crowd of servants and men at arms following him.
The badger was quite sure that this must be the fox, so he ran up to the sedan-chair, put in his head, and cried:
“I’ve found you out! I’ve won the game!”
“A badger! A badger! Off with his head,” cried the nobleman.
So one of the retainers cut off the badger’s head with one blow of his sharp sword, the little Cub all the time laughing unseen behind the tree.