Fairy Tales

salary,” and then the chambermaid had to go back into the pig sty again.

“A hundred kisses from the princess,” he said, “or no deal.”

“Stand around!” said she, and so all the chambermaids stood in front of her and he started kissing.

“What is that crowd doing down there by the pig sty?” asked the emperor, who had stepped out on the balcony. He rubbed his eyes and put on his glasses. “Why it’s the chambermaids at it again! I’d better go down and see.” And he pulled his slippers up in back because they were just shoes that he had worn down.

My heavens how he hurried!

As soon as he came into the yard, he slowed way down, and the chambermaids were so busy counting the kisses to be sure it was accurate that they didn’t notice the emperor, who stood up on his tiptoes.

“What’s this!?” he said when he saw them kissing, and then he hit them on their heads with his slipper, just as the swineherd got the eighty-sixth kiss. “Get out of here!” said the emperor, for he was very angry, and both the princess and the swineherd were banished from the kingdom.

She stood there crying, while the swineherd scolded, and the rain came pouring down.

“Alas, I’m a miserable person,” said the princess. “If only I’d accepted that lovely prince! Oh, how unhappy I am!”

The swineherd went behind a tree, wiped the black and brown colors from his face, threw away the dirty clothes, and stepped out in his prince outfit, so handsome that the princess had to curtsy before him.

“I have come to despise you, you see,” he said. “You didn’t want an honorable prince! You didn’t appreciate the rose or the nightingale, but you kissed a swineherd for the sake of a plaything! Now it serves you right.”

Then he went back to his kingdom and locked her out so she truly could sing:Ach, Du lieber Augustine,

Alles ist weg, weg, weg.

NOTE

1. From an eighteenth-century German folksong; the lines translate as: “Oh, my dearest Augustine / Everything is gone, gone, gone.”

MOTHER ELDERBERRY

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little boy who had a cold. He had been out and gotten wet feet. No one could understand how he had done that because the weather was quite dry. So his mother undressed him and put him to bed, and she brought in the tea urn to make him a good cup of elderberry tea because that warms you up! Just then the old amusing gentleman who lived on the top floor of the house came through the door. He lived quite alone because he had neither a wife nor children, but he was very fond of children and knew so many good fairy tales and stories that it was a delight.

“Now drink your tea,” said the mother, “and maybe you’ll get a fairy tale.”

“If I just knew a new one,” said the old man and nodded gently. “But where did the little guy get his feet wet?” he asked.

“Where indeed?” said his mother. “No one knows.”

“Are you going to tell me a story?” asked the boy.

“Well, first you have to tell me exactly how deep the gutter is in that little street where you go to school. I must know that.”

“Exactly to the middle of my boots,” said the boy, “but that’s when I walk in the deepest hole.”

“See, that’s where the wet feet came from,” said the old man. “Now I should really tell a fairy tale, but I don’t know any new ones.”

“You can make one up,” said the little boy. “Mother says that everything you look at can become a fairy tale, and that you can get a story from everything you touch.”

“But those fairy tales and stories are no good! No, the real ones come by themselves. They knock at my forehead and say, ‘Here I am!’”

“Won’t one knock soon?” asked the little boy, and his mother laughed as she put the tea in the pot and poured boiling water over it.

“A story! a story!”

“Well, if one would just come by itself, but they are so uppity that they only come when they want to—stop!” he said suddenly. “There it is! Look now, there’s one in the teapot.”

The little boy looked at the teapot. The lid raised itself higher and higher, and elderberry blooms came out so fresh and white. They shot out big, long branches, even out of the spout. They spread to all sides and became bigger and bigger. It was the most beautiful elderberry bush—a whole tree. It protruded onto the bed and shoved the curtains to the side. Oh, how it flowered and smelled! And in the middle of the tree sat a friendly old woman wearing an odd dress. It was quite green like the leaves of the elderberry tree and covered with white elderberry blossoms. You couldn’t tell right away whether it was cloth or real greenery and flowers.

“What’s that woman’s name?” asked the little boy.

“Well, the Romans and Greeks called her a dryad,”¹ said the old man, “but we don’t understand that. Over in Nyboder² they have a better name for her. They call her Mother Elderberry. Now keep your eye on her and on the beautiful elderberry tree while you listen:

“A tree just like this one stands blooming over there in Nyboder in the corner of a poor little garden. One afternoon two old people sat under that tree in the beautiful sunshine. They were a very old seaman and his very old wife. They were greatgrandparents, and they were soon going to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary, but they couldn’t quite remember the date. Mother Elderberry sat in the tree and looked self-satisfied, like she does here. ‘I certainly know when your anniversary is,’ she said, but they didn’t hear her. They were talking about the old days.

“‘Can you remember the time when we were small children?’ said the old seaman, ‘And we ran around in this