Fairy Tales

crying over the flowerpot. He didn’t know, of course, whose eyes were closed there, and whose red lips had become earth there. She leaned her head up against the flowerpot, and the little elf found her slumbering there. He climbed into her ear, told about the evening in the bower, about the smell of roses, and the love of the elves. She dreamed so sweetly and while she dreamed, life faded away. She died a quiet death and was in heaven with him whom she had loved.

And the jasmine flowers opened their beautiful big flowers. They smelled so wonderfully sweet. They had no other way to cry over the dead.

But the wicked brother looked at the beautiful flowering tree and took it, like an inheritance, to his bedroom and placed it next to his bed, because it was beautiful to see, and the fragrance was so sweet and delicious. The little rose elf followed along and flew from flower to flower. A little soul lived in each of them, and he told them about the murdered young man, whose head was now earth under them, and told about the wicked brother and the poor sister.

“We know this,” every soul in the flowers said. “We know it. Didn’t we grow forth from the dead man’s eyes and lips? We know it, we know it!” and they nodded their heads so strangely.

The rose elf couldn’t understand how they could be so calm, and he flew over to the bees, who were gathering honey, told them the story about the wicked brother, and the bees told their Queen, who commanded that the next morning they should all kill the murderer.

But the night before, the first night after the sister’s death, when the brother was sleeping in his bed close to the fragrant jasmine tree, each flower opened up. Invisibly, but with poisonous spears, the flower souls climbed out. First they sat by his ears and whispered bad dreams, then flew over his lips and stuck his tongue with the poisonous spears. “Now we have avenged the dead,” they said and searched out their white flowers again.

When morning came and the window to the bedroom was opened, the rose elf with the Queen of the bees and the whole swarm flew in to kill him.

But he was already dead. People were standing around the bed saying, “The fragrance of the jasmines has killed him!”

Then the rose elf understood the flowers’ revenge, and he told the Queen bee, and she buzzed around the flower pot with her whole swarm. The bees couldn’t be chased away so a man took the flower pot away, and one of the bees stuck his hand so that the flowerpot fell and broke in two.

They saw the white skull, and they knew that the dead man in the bed was a murderer.

And the Queen bee buzzed in the air and sang about the flowers’ revenge and about the rose elf, and that behind the smallest leaf lives one who can tell about wickedness and avenge it.

THE PIXIE AT THE GROCER’S

ONCE THERE WAS A real student—he lived in the garret and owned nothing. There was also a real grocer—he lived on the ground floor and owned the whole house. And the pixie stuck to him because every Christmas Eve he got a bowl of porridge with a big lump of butter in it. The grocer treated him to that, so the pixie stayed in the store, and it was worthwhile and educational for him.

One evening the student came in the back door to buy himself a candle and some cheese. He had no one to send, so he came himself. He got what he wanted, paid for it, and the grocer and his wife nodded “good evening” to him. There was a woman who could do more than nod! She had the gift of gab. The student nodded back and remained standing reading the paper that the cheese was wrapped in. It was a page torn from an old book that shouldn’t have been torn apart—an old book full of poetry.

“There’s more of it lying there,” said the grocer. “I gave an old woman some coffee beans for it. If you give me eight shillings, you can have the rest.”

“Thanks,” said the student. “Let me have that instead of the cheese. I can eat plain bread. It would be a shame if that whole book should be torn into bits and pieces. You’re a fine man, a practical man, but you don’t understand poetry any more than that trash bin does!”

That wasn’t very nice to say, especially about the trash bin, but the grocer laughed and the student laughed. It was said as a kind of joke, after all. But it annoyed the pixie that someone dared speak that way to the grocer, who owned the house and sold the very best butter.

At night, when the store was closed and everyone except the student was asleep, the pixie went in and took the gab-gift from the mistress. She didn’t need it when she was sleeping. And wherever he set it on an object in the room, the object was able to speak, could express its thoughts and feelings as well as the mistress. But only one at a time could have it, and that was a good thing, or they all would have been talking at once.

The pixie set the gab-gift on the trash bin. It had old newspapers in it. “Is it really true,” he asked, “that you don’t know what poetry is?”

“Oh, I know that,” said the trash bin. “It’s something that appears at the bottom of the newspapers and is clipped out! I think that I have more of it in me than the student does, and I’m just a poor trash bin compared to the grocer.”

The pixie placed the gab-gift on the coffee mill. My, how it ground on and on! Then he set it on the butter tub and the money till. Everybody was of the same opinion as the trash bin, and what the majority agree upon must be respected.

“Now the student is going to get it!” and the pixie went quietly up the kitchen stairs to the garret where the student lived. There was a light on in there, and the pixie peeked through the keyhole and saw that the student was reading the tattered book from downstairs. But how bright it was in there! From the book came a bright ray of light that turned into the trunk of a magnificent tree that rose up high and widely spread its branches over the student. Every leaf was so fresh, and each flower was the head of a beautiful girl, some with dark and shining eyes, and others with eyes so blue and wonderfully clear. Each fruit was a shining star, and there was sweet and lovely song and sound all around.

The little pixie had never imagined such splendor, much less seen or felt it. So he remained there on his tiptoes, peering and peeking until the light in there went out. The student must have blown out his lamp and gone to bed, but the little pixie continued to stand there because the song was still sounding so softly and sweetly, a delightful lullaby for the student as he lay down to rest.

“It’s wonderful here,” said the little pixie. “I hadn’t expected that. I think I’ll stay with the student!” And he thought and thought about it sensibly, and then he sighed: “The student doesn’t have any porridge.” And then he