Andrew Lang_Fairy Book 01 (19 page)

"Then may you hold the calf's tail, and the calf's tail
hold you, and may you go round the world together till
day dawns!" said the Master-maid. So the bailiff had to
bestir himself, for the calf went over rough and smooth,
over hill and dale, and, the more the bailiff cried and
screamed, the faster the calf went. When daylight began
to appear, the bailiff was half dead; and so glad was he to
leave loose of the calf's tail, that he forgot the sack of
money and all else. He walked now slowly—more slowly
than the sheriff and the attorney had done, but, the
slower he went, the more time had everyone to stare and
look at him; and they used it too, and no one can imagine
how tired out and ragged he looked after his dance with
the calf.

On the following day the wedding was to take place in
the King's palace, and the elder brother was to drive to
church with his bride, and the brother who had been with
the giant with her sister. But when they had seated
themselves in the coach and were about to drive off from
the palace one of the trace-pins broke, and, though they
made one, two, and three to put in its place, that did not
help them, for each broke in turn, no matter what kind
of wood they used to make them of. This went on for a
long time, and they could not get away from the palace,
so they were all in great trouble. Then the sheriff said
(for he too had been bidden to the wedding at Court):
"Yonder away in the thicket dwells a maiden, and if you
can get her to lend you the handle of the shovel that she
uses to make up her fire I know very well that it will hold
fast." So they sent off a messenger to the thicket, and
begged so prettily that they might have the loan of her
shovel-handle of which the sheriff had spoken that they
were not refused; so now they had a trace-pin which
would not snap in two.

But all at once, just as they were starting, the bottom
of the coach fell in pieces. They made a new bottom as
fast as they could, but, no matter how they nailed it
together, or what kind of wood they used, no sooner had
they got the new bottom into the coach and were about
to drive off than it broke again, so that they were still
worse off than when they had broken the trace-pin. Then
the attorney said, for he too was at the wedding in the
palace: "Away there in the thicket dwells a maiden, and
if you could but get her to lend you one-half of her
porch-door I am certain that it will hold together." So they
again sent a messenger to the thicket, and begged so
prettily for the loan of the gilded porch-door of which the
attorney had told them that they got it at once. They
were just setting out again, but now the horses were not
able to draw the coach. They had six horses already, and
now they put in eight, and then ten, and then twelve, but
the more they put in, and the more the coachman whipped
them, the less good it did; and the coach never stirred
from the spot. It was already beginning to be late in the
day, and to church they must and would go, so everyone
who was in the palace was in a state of distress. Then the
bailiff spoke up and said: "Out there in the gilded cottage
in the thicket dwells a girl, and if you could but get her
to lend you her calf I know it could draw the coach, even
if it were as heavy as a mountain." They all thought
that it was ridiculous to be drawn to church by a calf,
but there was nothing else for it but to send a messenger
once more, and beg as prettily as they could, on behalf of
the King, that she would let them have the loan of the
calf that the bailiff had told them about. The Master-maid
let them have it immediately—this time also she
would not say "no."

Then they harnessed the calf to see if the coach would
move; and away it went, over rough and smooth, over
stock and stone, so that they could scarcely breathe, and
sometimes they were on the ground, and sometimes up in
the air; and when they came to the church the coach began
to go round and round like a spinning-wheel, and it
was with the utmost difficulty and danger that they were
able to get out of the coach and into the church. And
when they went back again the coach went quicker still,
so that most of them did not know how they got back to
the palace at all.

When they had seated themselves at the table the
Prince who had been in service with the giant said that
he thought they ought to have invited the maiden who
had lent them the shovel-handle, and the porch-door, and
the calf up to the palace, "for," said he, "if we had not got
these three things, we should never have got away from
the palace."

The King also thought that this was both just and
proper, so he sent five of his best men down to the gilded
hut, to greet the maiden courteously from the King, and
to beg her to be so good as to come up to the palace to
dinner at mid-day.

"Greet the King, and tell him that, if he is too good to
come to me, I am too good to come to him," replied the
Master-maid.

So the King had to go himself, and the Master-maid
went with him immediately, and, as the King believed
that she was more than she appeared to be, he seated her
in the place of honor by the youngest bridegroom. When
they had sat at the table for a short time, the Master-maid
took out the cock, and the hen, and the golden
apple which she had brought away with her from the
giant's house, and set them on the table in front of her,
and instantly the cock and the hen began to fight with
each other for the golden apple.

"Oh! look how those two there are fighting for the
golden apple," said the King's son.

"Yes, and so did we two fight to get out that time when
we were in the mountain," said the Master-maid.

So the Prince knew her again, and you may imagine
how delighted he was. He ordered the troll-witch who had
rolled the apple to him to be torn in pieces between
four-and-twenty horses, so that not a bit of her was left,
and then for the first time they began really to keep the
wedding, and, weary as they were, the sheriff, the attorney,
and the bailiff kept it up too.
[10]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there were two
brothers, the one rich and the other poor. When Christmas
Eve came, the poor one had not a bite in the house,
either of meat or bread; so he went to his brother, and
begged him, in God's name, to give him something for
Christmas Day. It was by no means the first time that
the brother had been forced to give something to him, and
he was not better pleased at being asked now than he
generally was.

"If you will do what I ask you, you shall have a whole
ham," said he. The poor one immediately thanked him,
and promised this.

"Well, here is the ham, and now you must go straight
to Dead Man's Hall," said the rich brother, throwing the
ham to him.

"Well, I will do what I have promised," said the other,
and he took the ham and set off. He went on and on for
the livelong day, and at nightfall he came to a place where
there was a bright light.

"I have no doubt this is the place," thought the man
with the ham.

An old man with a long white beard was standing in the
outhouse, chopping Yule logs.

"Good-evening," said the man with the ham.

"Good-evening to you. Where are you going at this
late hour?" said the man.

"I am going to Dead Man's Hall, if only I am on the
right track," answered the poor man.

"Oh! yes, you are right enough, for it is here," said the
old man. "When you get inside they will all want to buy
your ham, for they don't get much meat to eat there; but
you must not sell it unless you can get the hand-mill
which stands behind the door for it. When you come out
again I will teach you how to stop the hand-mill, which
is useful for almost everything."

So the man with the ham thanked the other for his
good advice, and rapped at the door.

When he got in, everything happened just as the old
man had said it would: all the people, great and small,
came round him like ants on an ant-hill, and each tried
to outbid the other for the ham.

"By rights my old woman and I ought to have it for
our Christmas dinner, but, since you have set your hearts
upon it, I must just give it up to you," said the man.
"But, if I sell it, I will have the hand-mill which is standing
there behind the door."

At first they would not hear to this, and haggled and
bargained with the man, but he stuck to what he had said,
and the people were forced to give him the hand-mill.
When the man came out again into the yard, he asked the
old wood-cutter how he was to stop the hand-mill, and
when he had learned that, he thanked him and set off
home with all the speed he could, but did not get there
until after the clock had struck twelve on Christmas Eve.

"Where in the world have you been?" said the old
woman. "Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have
not even two sticks to lay across each other under the
Christmas porridge-pot."

"Oh! I could not come before; I had something of
importance to see about, and a long way to go, too; but now
you shall just see!" said the man, and then he set the
hand-mill on the table, and bade it first grind light, then
a table-cloth, and then meat, and beer, and everything
else that was good for a Christmas Eve's supper; and the
mill ground all that he ordered. "Bless me!" said the old
woman as one thing after another appeared; and she
wanted to know where her husband had got the mill
from, but he would not tell her that.

"Never mind where I got it; you can see that it is a
good one, and the water that turns it will never freeze,"
said the man. So he ground meat and drink, and all kinds
of good things, to last all Christmas-tide, and on the
third day he invited all his friends to come to a feast.

Now when the rich brother saw all that there was at the
banquet and in the house, he was both vexed and angry,
for he grudged everything his brother had. "On Christmas
Eve he was so poor that he came to me and begged
for a trifle, for God's sake, and now he gives a feast as if
he were both a count and a king!" thought he. "But, for
heaven's sake, tell me where you got your riches from,"
said he to his brother.

"From behind the door," said he who owned the mill,
for he did not choose to satisfy his brother on that point;
but later in the evening, when he had taken a drop too
much, he could not refrain from telling how he had come
by the hand-mill. "There you see what has brought me
all my wealth!" said he, and brought out the mill, and
made it grind first one thing and then another. When the
brother saw that, he insisted on having the mill, and after
a great deal of persuasion got it; but he had to give three
hundred dollars for it, and the poor brother was to keep
it till the haymaking was over, for he thought: "If I keep
it as long as that, I can make it grind meat and drink that
will last many a long year." During that time you may
imagine that the mill did not grow rusty, and when hay-harvest
came the rich brother got it, but the other had taken
good care not to teach him how to stop it. It was evening
when the rich man got the mill home, and in the morning
he bade the old woman go out and spread the hay after
the mowers, and he would attend to the house himself
that day, he said.

So, when dinner-time drew near, he set the mill on the
kitchen-table, and said: "Grind herrings and milk pottage,
and do it both quickly and well."

So the mill began to grind herrings and milk pottage,
and first all the dishes and tubs were filled, and then it
came out all over the kitchen-floor. The man twisted and
turned it, and did all he could to make the mill stop, but,
howsoever he turned it and screwed it, the mill went on
grinding, and in a short time the pottage rose so high that
the man was like to be drowned. So he threw open the
parlor door, but it was not long before the mill had ground
the parlor full too, and it was with difficulty and danger
that the man could go through the stream of pottage and
get hold of the door-latch. When he got the door open,
he did not stay long in the room, but ran out, and the
herrings and pottage came after him, and it streamed out
over both farm and field. Now the old woman, who was
out spreading the hay, began to think dinner was long in
coming, and said to the women and the mowers: "Though
the master does not call us home, we may as well go. It
may be that he finds he is not good at making pottage
and I should do well to help him." So they began to
straggle homeward, but when they had got a little way
up the hill they met the herrings and pottage and bread,
all pouring forth and winding about one over the other,
and the man himself in front of the flood. "Would to
heaven that each of you had a hundred stomachs! Take
care that you are not drowned in the pottage!" he cried
as he went by them as if Mischief were at his heels, down
to where his brother dwelt. Then he begged him, for
God's sake, to take the mill back again, and that in an
instant, for, said he: "If it grind one hour more the
whole district will be destroyed by herrings and pottage."
But the brother would not take it until the other paid
him three hundred dollars, and that he was obliged to do.
Now the poor brother had both the money and the mill
again. So it was not long before he had a farmhouse much
finer than that in which his brother lived, but the mill
ground him so much money that he covered it with plates
of gold; and the farmhouse lay close by the sea-shore, so
it shone and glittered far out to sea. Everyone who sailed
by there now had to be put in to visit the rich man in the
gold farmhouse, and everyone wanted to see the wonderful
mill, for the report of it spread far and wide, and there
was no one who had not heard tell of it.

After a long, long time came also a skipper who wished
to see the mill. He asked if it could make salt. "Yes, it
could make salt," said he who owned it, and when the
skipper heard that, he wished with all his might and main
to have the mill, let it cost what it might, for, he thought,
if he had it, he would get off having to sail far away over
the perilous sea for freights of salt. At first the man
would not hear of parting with it, but the skipper begged
and prayed, and at last the man sold it to him, and got
many, many thousand dollars for it. When the skipper
had got the mill on his back he did not stay there long,
for he was so afraid that the man would change his mind,
and he had no time to ask how he was to stop it grinding,
but got on board his ship as fast as he could.