The Juniper Tree and Other Tales Page 4

  “Dear God,” said the girl, “strawberries don’t grow in winter. The ground is frozen, the snow has covered everything up. And why must I go out in a paper dress? It’s so cold outside that people’s breath freezes. The wind will blow through the paper, and the thorns will tear it off me.”

  “Oh, so you’d contradict me, would you?” said the stepmother. “Out you go, and don’t come back until you’ve filled that little basket with strawberries.” Then she gave her a crust of hard bread, saying, “Here’s something for you to eat during the day.” But she was thinking: My stepdaughter will freeze and starve to death out there, and then I’ll never set eyes on her again.

  The girl obeyed her stepmother, put on the paper dress and went out with the little basket. There was nothing but snow far and wide, with not a single green blade of grass to be seen, however small. When she went into the forest she saw a cottage, and three little brownie men were looking out of it. She wished them good day, and knocked humbly at the door. They called to her to come in, so she went into their living room and sat down on the bench by the stove to warm herself and eat her breakfast.

  “Give us some of that,” said the little brownie men.

  “Willingly,” she said, and she divided her crust of dry bread in two and gave them half of it.

  “What are you doing out here in the forest in such a thin dress, and in winter-time too?” asked the little men.

  “Oh,” she said, “I have to pick enough strawberries to fill this little basket, and I mustn’t go home without them.”

  When she had eaten her bread, they gave her a broom and asked her to sweep the snow away from the back door with it. But while she was outside, the three little men said to one another, “What shall we give her for being such a good, kind girl and sharing her bread with us?”

  “I’ll see to it that she grows more beautiful every day,” said the first.

  “I’ll see to it that gold pieces fall from her mouth whenever she says a word,” said the second.

  “And I’ll see to it that a king comes along and makes her his wife,” said the third.

  The girl did just as the little brownie men had told her. She swept away the snow from behind the little house with the broom, and what do you think she found? Ripe strawberries, dark red as they emerged from the snow. In her joy she picked enough to fill her little basket, and then she thanked the little men, shook hands with all three of them and hurried home, taking her stepmother the strawberries that she had asked for. And the moment she walked in, saying, “Good evening,” a gold piece fell out of her mouth. Then she told her father and stepmother and stepsister what had happened to her in the forest, and at every word she spoke gold pieces fell from her mouth, so that soon the whole room was full of gold.

  “Just see how she shows off!” cried her stepsister. “Fancy throwing money about like that!” But secretly she was envious, and wanted to go into the forest looking for strawberries herself.

  “No, no, my darling daughter,” said her mother. “It’s too cold, and you might freeze to death.” However, as the girl gave her no peace, she made a magnificent fur coat for her to put on, and packed up bread and butter and cake for her to take with her.

  The girl went into the forest and straight to the cottage. The three little brownie men looked out of it again, but she didn’t wish them good day, and without giving them so much as a glance or a word of greeting she marched into the house, sat down by the stove and began eating her bread and butter and her cake.

  “Give us some of that,” said the little men, but the girl replied, “There isn’t even enough for myself, so how can I give any of it away?” And when she had finished eating, they gave her a broom and told her to sweep away the snow from outside the back door.

  “Sweep the snow away yourselves,” she replied. “I’m not your servant.” So when she saw that they weren’t going to give her anything, she went out of the door again.

  Then the little men said to one another, “What shall we give her for being such a cross, bad girl with an envious heart that wishes no good to anyone else?”

  “I’ll see to it that she grows uglier every day,” said the first.

  “I’ll see to it that a toad jumps out of her mouth with every word she says,” said the second.

  “I’ll see to it that she dies a miserable death,” said the third.

  The girl looked for strawberries outside, but found none and went home in a bad temper. And when she opened her mouth to tell her mother what had happened to her in the forest, a toad jumped out of it at every word she spoke, so that everyone shrank from her in horror.

  The stepmother was angrier than ever, and thought of nothing but how she could break the heart of her husband’s daughter, who was looking more beautiful every day. At last she took a cauldron, put it over the fire and boiled yarn in it. When the yarn was boiled, she hung it over the poor girl’s shoulder, gave her an axe, and told her to go down to the frozen river, hack a hole in the ice and rinse the yarn. The girl obeyed, went down to the river and hacked a hole in the ice, and as she was busy hacking it a magnificent coach with the King sitting in it came driving by.

  The coach stopped, and the King said, “My child, who are you, and what are you doing?”

  “I’m a poor girl, and I’m rinsing yarn,” she said.

  Then the King felt sorry for her, and when he saw how beautiful she was, he said, “Will you come away with me?”

  “Oh yes, with all my heart,” said the girl, glad to think that she would be out of sight of her stepmother and stepsister.

  So she got into the coach and drove away with the King, and when they had reached his castle they were married with great magnificence, just as the little men had said would happen. A year later the young Queen had a baby son, and when her stepmother heard of her happiness she and her own daughter came to the castle, pretending that they only wanted to pay the Queen a visit. However, when the King happened to go out one day, and there was no one else present, the wicked woman took hold of the Queen by the head, and her daughter took her by the feet, and they threw her out of the window and into the river flowing by outside. Then the woman’s ugly daughter lay down in the Queen’s bed, and the old woman covered her up, head and all.

  When the King came back, and wanted to talk to his wife, the old woman cried, “Hush, hush, that won’t do now. She’s in a fever and sweating heavily. You must let her rest today.” So the King, suspecting nothing, went away and didn’t come back until next morning, and as he spoke to his wife, and she answered him, a toad jumped out of her mouth at every word, whereas before gold pieces had fallen from it. Then he asked what had happened, but the old woman said it was because of her feverish sweating, and would soon pass off again.

  That night, however, the castle kitchen boy saw a duck come swimming along the gutter, and the duck said:

  “Dear King, are you sleeping,

  Or waking and weeping?”

  And when the kitchen boy did not answer, the duck said:

  “Are my guests all in bed?”

  To which the kitchen boy replied:

  “Yes, they sleep like the dead.”

  “And what about my baby dear?” the duck went on.

  The kitchen boy replied, “He’s sleeping in his cradle here.”

  Then the duck took on the shape of the Queen, went up to the baby, put him to her breast to suckle him, shook out his little mattress, covered him up and swam off again along the gutter in the shape of a duck. She came back in the same way for two nights, and on the third she said to the kitchen boy, “”Go and tell the King to take his sword, stand in the doorway of this room and whirl it above my head three times.”

  The kitchen boy hurried away and told the King his tale, and the King came with his sword and whirled it three times over the ghost’s head, and after the third time there stood his wife before him, alive and well and healthy as she had been before.

  The King was delighted, but he kept the Queen hidden away in
a bedchamber until the Sunday when the baby was to be baptised. And once the little boy was christened, the King said, “What should be done to someone who takes another human being out of bed and throws her into the water to drown?”

  “The best answer to that,” said the old woman, “is to put the wrong-doer in a barrel studded with nails, and roll it downhill into the water.”

  “You have pronounced sentence on yourself,” said the King, and he had such a barrel brought. The old woman and her daughter were put into it, and then the lid was hammered into place, and the barrel was rolled downhill until it landed in the river.

  THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE

  THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pisspot close to the sea, and the fisherman went out to fish every day. He fished and he fished.

  So there he was one day, sitting on the shore and looking into the clear water, and he sat and sat there.

  Then his line went right to the bottom of the sea, deep, deep down, and when he pulled it in there was a large flounder on the end of it. “Fisherman,” said the flounder, “listen to me. Please spare my life. I am not really a flounder, but an enchanted prince under a spell. What good will it do you to kill me? You wouldn’t really like the taste of me, so throw me back into the water and let me swim away!”

  “Well now,” said the fisherman, “there’s no need for so many words. I’m certainly going to throw a flounder who can talk back into the water.” So saying, he put the flounder back in the clear water, and the fish swam away, leaving a long trail of blood behind. Then the fisherman stood up and went home to his wife in the pisspot.

  “Haven’t you caught anything today, husband?” asked his wife.

  “No,” said the fisherman. “I did catch a flounder, but he said he was an enchanted prince under a spell, so I let him swim away again.”

  “Didn’t you ask him for a wish?” asked his wife.

  “No,” said the fisherman. “What would I wish for?”

  “Why,” said his wife, “I don’t like living in this pisspot, it stinks and it’s disgusting. You might have wished for a little house for us. Go back to the shore and call to the flounder! Tell him we’d like to have a little house. I’m sure he’ll give us that.”

  “But why should I go back to the shore?” asked the fisherman.

  “Why?” said his wife. “You caught him and then you let him swim away, so I’m sure he’ll do that for you. Off you go!”

  The husband didn’t quite like the idea, but he didn’t want to cross his wife’s will either, so he went down to the sea.

  When he got there, the sea was all green and yellow, and the water wasn’t as clear as before. So he stood there and called:

  “Mannie, mannie, timpty tee,

  Flounder swimming in the sea,

  My wife Mistress Ilsebill

  Wants a wish against my will.”

  Then the flounder came swimming up and said, “What does she want, then?”

  “Oh,” said the man. “I caught you, and now my wife says I ought to have wished for something. She doesn’t like living in a pisspot, she wants to have a little house.”

  “Go home,” said the flounder. “She has her little house already.”

  So the fisherman went home, and his wife wasn’t sitting in the pisspot any more. There was a little house where it had stood, and his wife was sitting on a bench outside the door. She took his hand, saying, “Come in, look, this is so much better!” Then they went into the little house, and saw a small entrance hall, a lovely little living room and a bedroom with a bed for each of them in it, a kitchen and a pantry, all equipped with the very best utensils made of pewter and copper and well displayed, just right for the house. There was a little yard behind it with ducks and geese, and a little garden where green herbs and vegetables and fruit grew. “Look,” said the fisherman’s wife, “isn’t this nice?”

  “Yes,” said the fisherman. “We’ll live happily in this house and be content with it.”

  “Let’s think that over,” said his wife, and then they had something to eat and went to bed.

  Well, so it went on for a week or two, and then the fisherman’s wife said, “Listen, husband, this little house is too cramped, and the yard and garden are so small. The flounder might have given us a larger house. I’d like to live in a big stone castle. Go back to the flounder and tell him to give us a castle!”

  “What, the likes of us live in a castle?”

  “Why not?” said his wife. “Off you go. The flounder can do it!”

  “No, no, wife,” said her husband. “The flounder has only just given us our little house. I don’t like to go straight back again. It might annoy him.”

  “Go along with you,” said his wife. “He can do it perfectly well, and he’ll be glad to do it too, so off you go.”

  The fisherman’s heart was heavy, and he didn’t want to go. This isn’t right, he said to himself—but off he went all the same.

  When he got down to the sea, the water was all purple and dark blue, grey and clouded, not yellow and green any more, but it was still calm. So he stood there and called:

  “Mannie, mannie, timpty tee,

  Flounder swimming in the sea,

  My wife Mistress Ilsebill

  Wants a wish against my will.”

  “Well, what does she want, then?” asked the flounder.

  “Oh dear,” said the fisherman, not very happily, “she wants to live in a big stone castle.”

  “Go home, and you’ll find her standing at the castle door,” said the flounder.

  So the man went away, thinking he was going home to the little house, but when he got there a large stone castle stood where the house had been, and his wife was standing at the top of the steps, about to go in. “Come along,” she said, taking his hand. So he went in with her, and inside the castle there was a great marble-floored hall, full of servants who opened the doors for them. The walls shone, and beautiful tapestries hung on them, and the rooms were furnished with gilded tables and chairs, with crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. There were carpets on the floors of all the rooms, and the tables were laden to breaking point with food and the best of wine. Behind the castle there was a large yard, with a stable for horses, a cowshed and carriages, all of the very best quality, as well as a wonderful garden full of beautiful flowers, fruit trees and a magnificent park a good half a mile long, with stags and deer and hares in it, and everything anyone could wish for.

  “There,” said the fisherman’s wife, “isn’t this lovely?”

  “Yes,” said her husband. “We’ll live happily in this beautiful castle and be content with it.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said his wife. “Let’s sleep on it.” And then they went to bed.

  Next morning the fisherman’s wife awoke. Day had just dawned, and from her bed she saw the beautiful countryside lying before her. Her husband was still stretching and waking up when she dug her elbow into his ribs and said, “Husband, get up and look out of the window! Couldn’t we be kings and rule this whole country? Off you go to the flounder and tell him we want to be kings!”

  “Oh, wife,” said the fisherman, “why would we want to be kings? I don’t want to be king.”

  “Well,” said his wife, “if you don’t want to be king, then I do. Go to see the flounder and tell him I want to be king!”

  “Oh, wife,” said her husband, “why would you want to be king? I don’t want to ask him for such a thing.”

  “Why not?” said his wife. “Off you go this minute. I must be king!”

  So off went the fisherman, very unhappy to think that his wife wanted to be king. It’s not right, he said to himself, it’s not right. He didn’t want to go down to the sea—but go he did.

  And when he reached the shore, the sea was all dark grey, with foul-smelling water swirling up turbulently from below. So he stood there and called:

  “Mannie, mannie,
timpty tee,

  Flounder swimming in the sea,

  My wife Mistress Ilsebill

  Wants a wish against my will.”

  “Well, what does she want now?” asked the flounder.

  “Oh dear,” said the fisherman, “she wants to be king.”

  “Go home, she’s king already,” said the flounder.

  So off went the fisherman, and when he got back the castle was much larger than before, a real palace, with a tall and richly ornamented tower, and sentries outside the gates, and many soldiers with drums and trumpets inside them. And once he was in the palace, everything was made of pure marble and gold, with velvet hangings and great golden tassels. Then the doors of the throne room opened. All the court was assembled there, and his wife sat on a tall throne made of gold and diamonds, with a great golden crown on her head, holding a sceptre made of pure gold and jewels. On both sides of her stood six maids of honour lined up in a row, each a head taller than the next.

  So he came in, and said, “Oh, wife, are you king now?”

  “Yes,” said his wife. “I’m king.”

  He stood there looking at her, and when he had gazed his fill he said, “Well, wife, I’m sure you are happy to be king, and now we’ll wish for nothing more.”

  “You’re wrong, husband,” said his wife, and she was very restless. “This isn’t good enough for me, and I can’t bear it any longer. Go to see the flounder and tell him I may be king, but I want to be emperor too.”

  “Oh, wife,” said the fisherman, “why do you want to be emperor?”

  “Husband,” said his wife, “just go to the flounder and tell him that’s what I want.”

  “But wife,” said the fisherman, “he can’t make you emperor. I don’t want to say such a thing to the flounder. There’s only one emperor in the whole empire, so the flounder can’t make you emperor, he simply cannot do it!”

  “What?” said his wife. “I’m king, and you’re my husband, so why don’t you go off at once? This minute! If he can make kings, he can make emperors. I want to be emperor, I must be emperor, so off you go!”