Читать книгу Fairy Tales, Fables, And Legends - Beatrice Wilcken - Страница 4

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Deep in a forest where beech, and elm and fir trees grow, there is the source of a little brooklet, and at the side of that brooklet was once a bower of ivey in which lived the loveliest and prettiest of fairies. Her life was one dream of happiness. She danced in the sunbeams, bathed her small feet in the little brook and splashed the old stone with water until his old mossgrown head looked as if it were crowned with diamonds. The old stone looked pleased though it could not smile very much you know. Then she threw kiss-hands up to the trees, and they bowed in return, and rustled their leaves from head to foot in acknowledgment of her sweet winning ways. She chased the butterflies, and when fairy and butterflies were tired they rested—she leaning against her old friend the mossgrown stone and the butterflies resting on her head—a picture as lovely as a dream!

One day when she was tired of her play and resting, there came along a human being with book and pencil in his hand. He threw himself on the moss, and in a rapturous voice read aloud what he had written. He was a poet, and his heart was filled with the beauty of Nature! Like music the words fell from his lips and the fairy listened breathlessly. Then he went; but the next day he came again, and then again, and the little fairy grew silent. All her playing was over. One intense wish seized her heart—the wish, the longing that she also were a human being that the Poet might see her and read her those beautiful words.

Time went on, and it became mid-summer. Now everybody knows that in the mid-summer’s night—in full moonshine —the Queen of the Fairies holds her court to hear the complaints of all her subjects and to judge lightly.

And so it was also this midsummer’s night. In an opening of the forest, where the ground is covered with moss, the trees grow in a circle, and the moonbeams have full play, the fairy court was to be held. All the little flowers stretched their heads up as far as they could to have a look at the Queen—to dream ever after of her. The glowworms lit their lamps, hanging about in garlands and festoons, and then the court came. In front the whole orchestra—the gnats as harp players, the bees as violincello players, the frog as the big drum, and every insect that could hum or sing doing its very best.

Then the Fairy Queen came lying in a lily drawn by golden beetles. When the procession arrived at the open space the orchestra stopped playing, and silence fell on all around. Suddenly, first low, then louder and louder, the wonderful song of the nightingale was heard bursting forth with intense enthusiasm as if all the beauty of the summer’s night was concentrated in that glorious song.

Then silence again,

The Fairy Queen spoke:—“Let all who want to complain come to me that I may help them.”

One little fairy came and told a tale how a malicious bee would persecute her, and insist upon telling how much he was in love with her. Another complained that the nightingale sung the whole night through at her window, and she never could get a good night’s rest. At last our dear little fairy came and threw herself at the feet of the Queen. “And what ails thee, my sweet little thing,” the Queen kindly asked, “you, the happiest in all my empire?”

“Oh, gracious Queen,” the little fairy answered, “grant me one wish—the only wish of my heart—let me be as human beings are, that I may speak to them and they speak to me,”

Seriously the Queen looked down upon the fairy, and seriously she said:—“You ask a dangerous thing. I will grant your wish, but only under one condition. You shall be a human being as long as no man ever says to you, ‘I love you,’ and no man ever kisses your cheek. Men are a false race. They rush at the moment’s pleasure and break the hearts of those who trust them. If ever a man speaks to you of love, you will have to die! Go, and be a human being, but never forget my words.” And, dancing, the little fairy went home.

The next day dreamingly the Poet came along, and looking up he saw a beauteous vision. He thought for a moment that his fancy had created it; but the vision had life and came blushing and smiling with her sweet blue eyes towards him. They sat down together.

The Poet talked to her and read to her.

And he went and came, and came and went, and that deadly poison, which contains the greatest misery and the greatest happiness, that poison which human beings call love, entered and filled their hearts.

One night when the moonlight bathed the whole of Nature in a silver glory—when silence reigned supreme—the youth gently put his arm around the maiden’s shoulder, drew her towards him, kissed her cheek, and whispered “I love you,”

One moment of intense happiness, and then all Nature seemed in an immense uproar. Thunder roared, the lightning flashed, and before them stood the Fairy Queen! The poor girl sank trembling on her knees, and the Fairy Queen cried “You know your doom. You have brought it upon yourself. You trusted a man. He spoke to you of love. You die.”

But the Poet stepped forward and cried “No! she shall not die. She trusted a man’s heart; she shall live for ever in that man’s heart, and shall never die there, or ever be forgotten!”

A smile passed over the Fairy Queen’s face. She laid her hand on the girl’s head, and gently she said “No! she shall not die; but as a human being she cannot live,” and under her gentle hand the body and limbs of the girl formed themselves into leaves, the neck into a stem, the lovely head into a flower, and the blue eyes looked up into the Poet’s face.

“You shall not be forgotten” said the Fairy Queen, “and ‘Forget-me-not’ be thy name.”

And since that time the little blue “Forget-me-not” has been the emblem of true friendship and true love.