A Russian Tale

An old man and an old woman lived in an old house on the edge of the forest. The old man worked in the field all day and the woman spun flax. But for all of their hard work they were very poor—never one penny could they save. One day the old man said to the old woman:

“I would like to give you something to please you, but I have nothing to give.”

“Never mind that,” said the old woman, “make me a straw ox.”

“A straw ox!” cried the old man. “What will you do with that?”

“Never mind that,” said the old woman.

So the old man made a straw ox.

“Smear it all over with tar,” said the old woman.

“Why should I smear it with tar?” asked the old man.

“Never mind that,” said the old woman.

So the old man smeared the straw ox all over with tar.

The next morning when the old woman went out into the field to gather flax she took the straw ox with her and left it standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A bear came out of the woods, and said to the ox: “Who are you?”

“I am an ox all smeared with tar,
And filled with straw, as oxen are,”

replied the ox.

“Oh,” said the bear. “I need some straw to mend my coat, and the tar will keep it in place. Give me some straw and some tar.”

“Help yourself,” said the ox.

So the bear began to tear at the ox, and his great paws stuck fast, and he pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck, and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the bear to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox with the bear stuck fast to him.

“Husband, husband! Come here at once,” she cried. “The ox has brought home a bear; what shall we do?”

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the bear off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the old woman went into the field to gather flax she again took the straw ox with her, and again she left him standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A wolf came out of the woods, and said to the ox: “Who are you?”

“I am an ox all smeared with tar,
And filled with straw, as oxen are,”

replied the ox.

“Oh,” said the wolf, “I need some tar to smear my coat so that the dogs cannot catch me.”

“Help yourself,” said the ox.

The wolf put up his paws to take the tar and his paws stuck fast. He pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the wolf to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox in the yard with the wolf stuck fast to him.

“Husband, husband! Come here at once!” she cried. “The ox has brought home a wolf; what shall we do?”

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the wolf off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the old woman went out into the field to gather flax she again took the straw ox with her, and again she left it standing alone near the edge of the forest.

A fox came out of the woods, and said to the ox: “Who are you?”

“I am an ox all smeared with tar,
And filled with straw, as oxen are,”

replied the ox.

“Oh,” said the fox, “I need some tar to smear my coat so that the dogs cannot catch me.”

“Help yourself,” said the ox.

The fox put up his paws to take the tar, and his paws stuck fast. He pulled and he tugged, and he tugged and he pulled, and the more he pulled and tugged, the faster he stuck, and he could not get away.

Then the ox dragged the fox to the old house on the edge of the forest.

When the old woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the straw ox had gone she ran home as fast as she could. There stood the ox with the fox stuck fast to him.

“Husband, husband! Come here at once!” she cried. “The ox has brought home a fox; what shall we do?”

So the old man came as fast as he could, pulled the fox off the ox, tied him up, and threw him into the cellar.

The next morning when the woman came back with her apron full of flax and saw that the ox had gone and she had run home as fast as she could, there stood the ox with a rabbit stuck fast to him.

And the old man threw the rabbit into the cellar.

The next morning the old man said:

“Now we will see what will come of all of this.”

So he took his knife and sat down by the cellar door and began to make the knife sharp and bright.

“What are you doing, old man?” asked the bear.

“I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat and make a nice warm jacket for the old woman to keep her warm this winter.”

“Oh,” said the bear. “Do not cut up my coat. Let me go, and I will bring you some nice, sweet honey to eat.”

“Very well,” said the old man, “see to it that you do.”

So the old man let the bear go.

Then he sat down again and began to make his knife sharp and bright.

“What are you doing, old man?” asked the wolf.

“I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat to make me a fine fur cap,” said the old man.

“Oh,” said the wolf. “Do not cut up my coat. Let me go and I will bring you some sheep.”

“Very well,” said the old man, “see to it that you do.”

So the old man let the wolf go.

Then he sat down again with his knife in his hand.

“What are you doing, old man?” asked the fox.

“I am making my knife sharp and bright so as to cut up your coat to make me a nice fur collar.”

“Oh,” said the fox, “do not cut up my coat. Let me go and I will bring you some geese.”

“Very well,” said the old man, “see to it that you do.”

And in the same way he let the rabbit loose, who said that he would bring some cabbage and some turnips and some carrots.

The next morning early the old woman woke up and said:

“Some one is knocking at the door.”

So the old man got up and went to the door and opened it.

“See,” said the bear, “I have brought you a jar full of honey.”

“Very well,” said the old man, and he gave the jar to the old woman who put it on the shelf.

Then came the wolf driving a flock of sheep into the yard.

“See,” said the wolf, “I have brought you a flock of sheep.”

“Very well,” said the old man, and he drove the sheep into the pasture.

Then came the fox, with many geese running before him, and the old man drove them into the pen; and then came the rabbit with cabbages and turnips and carrots and other good things, and the old woman took them and put them into the pot and cooked them.

And the old man said to the old woman, “Now we have sheep in the pasture and many geese in the pen, and we are rich, and I can give you something to please you.”

BY B. J. DASKAM

Once upon a time the great, yellow stork carried a baby Princess to the Queen of that country which lies next to fairy-land.

All throughout the kingdom the bells rang, the people shouted, and the King declared a holiday for a whole year. But the Queen was very anxious, for she knew that the fairies are a queer lot, and their borders were very close indeed.

“We must be very careful to slight none of them at the christening,” she said, “for goodness knows what they might do, if we did!”

So the wise-men drew up the lists, and when the day for the christening arrived, the fairies were all there, and everything went as smoothly as a frosted cake.

But the Queen said to the Lady-in-waiting:

“The first fairy godmother gave her nothing but a kiss! I don’t call that much of a gift!”

“’Sh!” whispered the Lady-in-waiting. “The fairies hear everything!”

And indeed, the fairy heard her well enough, and very angry she was about it, too. For she was so old that she knew all about it, from beginning to end, and she was sure that the Wizard with Three Dragons was sitting in the Black Forest, watching the whole matter in his crystal globe. So she had whispered her gift—which was nothing more nor less than a Fearless Heart—into the ear of the Little Princess. But the Queen thought she had only kissed her.

So, when the clock was on the hour of four (which, as every one knows, is the end of christenings and fairy gifts) the first godmother went up to the golden cradle.

“Since my first gift was not satisfactory to every one,” she said, angrily, “I will give the Little Princess another. And that is, that when the time comes she shall marry the Prince of the Black Heart!”

Then the clock struck four, while the Queen wept on the bosom of the Lady-in-waiting.

And that was the end of the christening.

Then the King called the wise-men together, and for forty days and nights they read the books and studied the stars.

In the end, they laid out a Garden, with a wall so high that the sun could not shine over it until noon, and so broad that it was a day’s journey for a swift horse to cross it. One tiny door there was: but the first gate was of iron, and five-and-twenty men-at-arms stood before it, day and night, with drawn swords; the second gate was of beaten copper, and before that were fifty archers, with arrows on the string; the third gate was of triple brass, and before it a hundred knights, in full armor, rode without ceasing.

Into the Garden went the Little Princess, and the Queen, and all her ladies; but no man might pass the gates, save the King himself. And there the Princess dwelt until her seventeenth birthday, without seeing any more of the world than the inside of the wall.

Now it happened that, some time before, a young Prince had ridden out of the west and set about his travels. For the wise-man on the hill had come to him and said:

“In the kingdom which lies next to fairyland dwells a Little Princess who has a Fearless Heart. There is a wall which will not be easy to climb, but the Princess is more beautiful than anything else in the world!”

And that was enough for the Prince, so he girded on his sword, and set out, singing as he went for pure lightness of heart.

But it is not so easy to find fairyland as it is to eat a ripe apple, and the Prince could have told you that, before he was through. For in some places it is so broad that it takes in the whole world, and in others so narrow that a flea could cross it in two jumps. So that some people never leave it all their lives long, but others cross at a single step, and never see it at all.

Finally, the Prince came to the place where all roads meet, and they were as much alike as the hairs on a dog’s back. But it was all one to him, so he rode straight ahead and lost himself in fairyland.

When the first fairy godmother saw him, she laughed to herself and flew away, straight over his head, to the wall around the Garden. But you may be sure that she did not trouble the guards at the triple gates: for, if one has wings, what is the use of stairs? So over the wall she flew to the room where the Little Princess lay sleeping.

You may readily believe that the Princess was astonished when she awoke to find the fairy beside her bed, but she was not in the least alarmed, for, you see, she did not know that there was anything in the world to be afraid of.

“My dear,” said the old lady, “I am your first fairy godmother.”

“How do you do, Godmother?” said the Princess, and she sat up in bed and courtesied. Which is a very difficult trick, indeed, and it is not every Princess who can do it.

Her godmother was so delighted that she leaned over and kissed her.

“That is the second time I have kissed you,” she said. “When I go, I will kiss you again, and you had better save the three of them, for they will be useful when you go out into the world. And, my dear, it is high time that you were going out.”

Then the Little Princess was overjoyed, but she only nodded her head wisely and said:

“I know, the world is as big as the whole Garden, and wider than the wall. But I can never go out, for the gates are always locked.”

“If you do not go now,” said the fairy, “you will have to go later, and that might not be so well. And you should not argue with me, for I am older than you will ever be, and your godmother, besides. Now kiss me, for I must be going.”

So she flew away, about her other affairs, for she was a very busy old lady indeed.

In the morning the Princess went to breakfast with the King and the Queen.

“Mother,” she said, “it is high time that I went out into the world!”

The Queen was so startled that she dropped her egg on the floor and the King was red as a beet with anger.

“Tut! Tut!” he shouted. “What nonsense is this?”

“My fairy godmother was here last night,” said the Princess, “and she told me all about it. I will go this morning, please, if I may.”

“Nonsense!” roared the King.

“You will do no such thing!” wailed the Queen.

“There could have been no one here,” said the King, “for the gates were all locked.”

“Who told you that you had a fairy godmother?” asked the Queen.

And there was an end of that.

But that night, after the Princess had said her prayers and crept into bed, she heard her godmother calling to her from the Garden, so she slipped on her cloak and stole out into the moonlight. There was no one to be seen, so she pattered along in her little bare feet until she came to the gate in the wall.

While she was hesitating whether or not to run back to her little white bed, the gates of triple brass opened as easily as if her godmother had oiled them, and the Little Princess passed through the copper gates, and the iron gate, and out into fairyland.

But if you ask me why she saw the guards at the gates no more than they saw her, I can only tell you that I do not know, and you will have to be satisfied with that.

As for the Princess, she was as happy as a duck in a puddle. As she danced along through the forests, the flowers broke from their stems to join her, the trees dropped golden fruit into her very hands, and the little brook which runs through fairyland left its course, and followed her, singing.

And all the while, her godmother was coming down behind her, close at hand, to see that she came to no harm; but the Princess did not know that.

At last she came to the place where the Prince from the west lay sleeping. He was dreaming that he had climbed the wall and had found the Princess, so that he smiled in his sleep and she knelt above him, wondering, for she had never seen a man before, save her father, the King, and the Prince was very fair. So she bent closer and closer, until her breath was on his cheek, and as he opened his eyes, she kissed him.

As for the Prince, he thought that he was still asleep, till he saw that she was many times more beautiful than in his dreams, and he knew that he had found her at last.

“You are more beautiful than anything else in the world,” he said, “and I love you better than my life!”

“And I love you with all my heart!” said the Little Princess.

“Will you marry me,” asked the Prince, “and live with me forever and ever?”

“That I will,” said the Princess, “and gladly, if my father, the King, and my mother, the Queen, will let me leave the Garden.”

And she told the Prince all about the wall with the triple gates.

The Prince saw that it would be no easy task to win the consent of the King and the Queen, so nothing would do but that he must travel back to the west and return with a proper retinue behind him.

So he bade the Princess good-by and rode bravely off toward the west.

The Princess went slowly back through fairyland, till she came to the wall, just as the sun was breaking in the east. As every one knows, White Magic is not of very much use in the daytime, outside of fairyland, and if you ask why this is not so at christenings, I will send you to Peter Knowall, who keeps the Big Red Book.

So the guards at the triple gates saw the Princess, and they raised such a hub-bub, that the King and the Queen rushed out to see what all the noise was about. You can easily believe that they were in a great way when they saw the Little Princess, who they thought was safe asleep in her bed.

They lost no time in bundling her through the gates, and then they fell to kissing her, and scolding her, and shaking her, and hugging her, all in the same breath.

But the Princess said, “I have been out into the world, and I am going to marry the Prince!”

Then perhaps there was not a great to-do about the Garden!

They bullied and coaxed and scolded and wept, but the Princess only said,

“I love him with all my heart and when the time comes I will go to him, if I have to beg my way from door to door!”

At that the King flew into a towering rage.

“Very well, Miss!” he shouted. “But when you go, you may stay forever! I will cut your name off the records, and any one who speaks it will be beheaded, if it is the High Lord Chancellor, himself!”

Then it was the turn of the Princess to weep, for she loved her parents dearly, but she could not promise to forget the Prince.

So matters went from pence to ha’pennies, as the saying goes, till finally the Princess could bear it no longer, so she found her cloak and stole down to the triple gates.

Everything went very much as it had before, save that there was no Prince asleep under the tree where she had first found him. Then the Princess would have turned back, but the little brook which followed at her heel had swollen out into a broad, deep river, and there was nothing to do but go ahead, till she came to a cottage among the trees, and before the door sat an old, old woman, spinning gold thread out of moonlight. And by that any one could have told that she was a fairy, but the Princess thought it was always done that way in the world.

“Oh, Mother,” she cried, “how shall I find my way out of the forest?”

But the old woman went on spinning, and the Princess thought that she had never seen anything fly so fast as the shuttle.

“Where were you wanting to go?” she asked.

“I am searching for the Prince from the west,” said the Princess sadly. “Can you tell me where to find him?”

The fairy shook her head and went on with her spinning, so fast that you could not see the shuttle at all.

But the Princess begged so prettily that finally she said,

“If I were looking for a Prince, I would follow my nose until I came to the Black Forest, and then I would ask the Wizard with Three Dragons, who knows all about it, and more, too! That is, unless I thought that I would be afraid in the Black Forest.”

“What is afraid?” asked the Little Princess. “I do not know that.”

And no more she did, so the fairy laughed, for she saw trouble coming for the Wizard. She stopped her wheel with a click, but for all her fast spinning, there was only enough gold thread to go around the second finger of the Princess’s left hand.

As for the Princess, she thanked the old lady very kindly, and set bravely off toward the Black Forest.

But the Wizard with Three Dragons only laughed as he gazed into his crystal globe, for in it he could see everything that was happening in any place in the world, and I do not need Jacob Wise-man to tell me that a globe like that is worth having!

Now, when the Prince had left the Princess in fairyland, he lost no time in riding back to the west. The old King, his father, was overjoyed when he heard of the Little Princess, and he gave the Prince a retinue that stretched for a mile behind him.

But when they came to the place where all roads meet, the Prince was greatly perplexed, for this time, you see, he knew where he wanted to go. In the end, he trusted to chance and rode ahead, but they had not gone far before they came to the castle of the Wizard with Three Dragons, in the middle of the Black Forest.

In the great hall sat the Wizard, himself, waiting for them, and he was as soft as butter.

Yes, yes, he knew the Princess well enough, but it was too late to go further that night. So the Prince and all his train had best come into the castle and wait till morning.

That was what the Wizard said, and the Prince was glad enough to listen to him, for he was beginning to fear that he would never find the Princess again. But hardly had the last bowman come within the doors than the Wizard blew upon his crystal globe, and muttered a spell.

At that, the Prince and his entire train were changed to solid stone, in the twinkling of an eye, and there they remained till, at the proper time, the Little Princess of the Fearless Heart came up the great stone steps of the castle.

The Wizard was sitting on his throne with his Dragons behind his shoulder, staring into his crystal globe as it spun in the air, hanging on nothing at all.

He never took his eyes away when the Princess came up to the throne, and she was far too polite to interrupt him when he was so busy. So for a long, long time she stood there waiting, and the Wizard chuckled to himself, for he thought that she was too frightened to speak. So he breathed upon his crystal globe and muttered a spell.

But of course, nothing happened, for the Little Princess had a Fearless Heart!

Then the Wizard grew black as night, for he saw that the matter was not so easy as plucking wild flowers, so he turned away from the crystal globe and stared at the Princess. His eyes burned like two hot coals, so that she drew her cloak closer about her, but you cannot hide your heart from a Wizard with Three Dragons, unless your cloak is woven of sunlight, and the Little Black Dwarf has the only one of those in the whole world, stowed away in an old chest in the garret.

So the Wizard saw at once that the Little Princess had a Fearless Heart, and his voice was soft as rain-water.

“Oh, Little Princess,” he said. “What is it that you want of me in the Black Forest?”

“I am looking for the Prince from the west,” said the Princess, eagerly. “Can you tell me where to find him?”

“Yes,” said the Wizard. “I can tell you that, and perhaps some other things, besides. But what will you give me for my trouble?”

Then the Little Princess hung her head, for she had nothing about her that was worth so much as a bone button, and the Wizard knew that as well as you and I. So he said, very softly, “Will you give me your Fearless Heart?”

And there was the whole matter in a nutshell!

But the Princess stamped her foot on the stone floor. “Of course I will not give you my heart,” she said. “And if you will not tell me for kindness, I will be going on, for I have nothing with which to pay you!”

“Not so fast!” cried the Wizard—for he was as wise as a rat in a library—“If you will not give me your heart, just let me have a kiss and I will call it a bargain!”

Then the Princess remembered her godmother’s three kisses, and she thought that this was the place for them, if they were ever to be used at all, although she liked the thought of kissing the Wizard about as much as she liked sour wine. She crept up to the throne, and, with her eyes tight closed, gave the Wizard the first of the three kisses.

At that the whole Black Forest shook with the force of the Magic, hissing through the trees, and the Wizard, with his Three Dragons turned into solid stone!

The crystal globe spun around in the air, humming like a hive full of bees and sank slowly to the foot of the throne.

Hardly had it touched the ground than the whole castle rent and split into a thousand pieces, and I would not like to have been there, unless I had a bit of gold thread spun out of moonlight around my finger, for the huge rocks were falling as thick as peas in a pan!

But the Princess hardly noticed the rocks at all, for, as the sun rose over the Black Forest, she recognized the marble figure of the Prince, standing among the ruins. You may be sure that she was heartbroken as she went up to him, weeping very bitterly and calling and calling on his name. Then in her sorrow she reached up and kissed the cold stone face with the second magic kiss.

Then suddenly she felt the marble grow soft and warm beneath her touch, and the Prince came back to life and took her in his arms.

When he recognized the silent figures of his gay train, he was sad as death, and the Princess wept with him. But suddenly they saw an old, old woman picking her way among the fallen stones.

“Oh,” said the Little Princess, “that is the old woman whom I met in the forest, spinning!”

At that the fairy laughed so hard that her hair tumbled down about her feet, and it turned from gray to silver, and silver to gold. The years fell from her like a cloak, until she was more beautiful than the thought of man could conceive!

“Ah! I know you now!” cried the Little Princess. “You are my first fairy godmother!”

And that was the way of it, so she kissed them both for pure joy. But when they asked her as to which of the stone figures should have the third magic kiss, she shook her head,

“None of them at all!” she said. “But give me back that bit of gold thread, for you will have no further use for it.”

Then she stretched the thread between her two hands until it was so fine that you could not see it at all, and laid it on the ground around the Wizard and his Dragons, and tied a magic knot, just behind the crystal globe.

“Now give the third kiss to the crystal globe,” she said, “and see what will happen!”

So the Little Princess kissed the globe, and from the place where her lips touched it, a stream of water trickled down. As it touched the feet of each statue, the marble softened to flesh and blood, and the breath came back to it until all of the Prince’s train were alive again; but as for the Wizard, the water could not pass the gold thread, so there he sits until this day—unless some busybody has untied the magic knot. Then the fairy flew away, singing a low, happy song.

When the Prince and the Princess came to the Garden, there was a wedding which lasted a month, and then they rode off toward the west.

After they had gone, the Queen whispered to the Lady-in-waiting,

“You see what careful parents can do! The first fairy godmother was quite wrong about the Prince of the Black Heart!”

But at that very moment, the Prince had bared his arm to pluck a water-flower, as they rested beside the way.

“What is that black mark on your arm?” asked the Princess.

“Oh,” said the Prince, laughing, “that is just a scar I have borne from birth. It is in the shape of a heart, and so, for a jest, my people call me the Prince of the Black Heart.”

“Black Heart, indeed!” cried the Little Princess, angrily.

And that is the end of the story, for if you have no fear in your heart, black magic is no such great thing after all.

But if any old fogy should wag his gray beard and say there is not a word of truth in it, you may be very sure that he came to fairyland at the narrow place, and never saw it at all. So you may just smile at him, for there is one thing, at least, that you know more about than he does!