Faery Tales Read online

‘I’ll send my honest Prime Minister to the weavers,’ thought the Emperor. ‘He’s the best one to tell what the cloth looks like, for he has brains and no one deserves his position more than him.’

  So off went the honest Prime Minister to the workshop where the two swindlers sat cheating at their empty looms.

  ‘Good heavens above!’ thought the Prime Minister, with his eyes frogging out of his head. ‘I can’t see anything at all!’ But he made sure not to say so.

  The two swindlers begged him to come nearer and take a closer look. Didn’t he think their colours and patterns were wonderful? Then they pointed to their empty looms and although the poor Prime Minister widened and widened his eyes, he couldn’t see a thing because there wasn’t a thing to see. ‘Crikey!’ he thought. ‘Does this mean that I am stupid? I had no idea! Nobody else had better get wind of it either! Am I unfit for my post? No, I can’t possibly admit that I can’t see the stuff.’

  ‘What d’you think of it then?’ asked one of the weavers.

  ‘Oh, it’s so charming! Quite enchanting! Totally exquisite!’ said the poor Prime Minister, staring through his spectacles. ‘What an original pattern! What tasteful colours! Yes, indeed, I shall make sure to tell the Emperor how much I like it!’

  ‘Oh, we’re well pleased to hear that,’ said the swindlers, and then they named all the colours and described the unusual design. The Prime Minister listened carefully, so he could repeat it all to the Emperor – which he did.

  Now the swindlers demanded more money, more fine silk and more gold thread, which they said was needed for weaving. But it all went straight into their own sky-rockets – not one thread went onto the loom – and they carried on working at the empty frames as before.

  Before too long, the Emperor sent along another sincere statesman to see how the weaving was coming along and if the stuff would soon be ready. Just like the Prime Minister, he looked and looked, but, as there was nothing there, there was nothing to see.

  ‘Look at that! Isn’t that a well gorgeous piece of stuff?’ said the swindlers, and they drew his attention to the prettiness of the design, which wasn’t there at all.

  ‘I know I’m not stupid,’ thought the man, ‘so it must be my official position I’m not fit for. Some people would have a good laugh at this, so I must make sure it doesn’t get out.’ So he praised the material, which he could not see, and complimented them on its beautiful colours and charming design. ‘Yes, it’s fabulous!’ he said to the Emperor when he got back.

  The whole town could talk of nothing else but the wonderful material. The Emperor decided that he himself must see it while it was still on the loom. With a crowd of hand-picked courtiers, including the two esteemed officials who had already visited, the Emperor arrived at the workshop. Both crafty villains were weaving away like the clappers without so much as a thread between them.

  ‘Isn’t it splendid, Your Imperial Majesty?’ said the two honest statesmen. ‘What colouring! What patterning! If Your Majesty will take a look!’ And they pointed to the empty looms, quite sure that everyone else could see the stuff.

  ‘Gosh! What’s going on?’ thought the Emperor. ‘I can see nothing at all! This is dreadful! Am I stupid? Am I unfit to be Emperor? This is the most appalling thing that could happen to me … Oh, it’s so-o-o gorgeous,’ he said to them. ‘It has our total approval!’ And he nodded his head up and down contentedly as he gazed at the empty loom. After all, he wasn’t going to say that he couldn’t see a thing. The crowd of courtiers who had come with him looked and looked, but they could see no more than anyone else had done. But they all copied the Emperor and said, ‘Oh, it’s so-o-o gorgeous!’ And then they advised him to have some clothes made from this wonderful new material and to wear them for the Grand Procession that was soon to take place. ‘Beautiful!’ ‘Divine!’ ‘Superb!’ ‘To die for!’ were the compliments that scurried from mouth to mouth. Everyone just loved the material and the Emperor gave each of the swindlers a knighthood, with a badge for his buttonhole, and the title of Imperial Weaver.

  On the eve of the Grand Procession, the swindlers sat up all night by the light of seventeen candles. Everyone could see how hard they were working to finish the Emperor’s new clothes. They pretended to take the material down from the loom; they snipped and they clipped at the air with huge scissors; they sewed busily with needles that had no thread in them, and at the end of it all they said, ‘Sorted! The Emperor’s new clothes are ready!’

  Then the Emperor himself arrived, surrounded by all his statesmen; and the two swindlers held out their arms, as though they were displaying the new clothes, and said, ‘Here are the trousers! Here is the jacket! Here is the long cloak!’ And so on. ‘They are as delicate as gossamer, as light as a spider’s web; you can hardly feel you are wearing anything – that’s the beauty of them!’

  ‘Yes! Absolutely!’ chorused all the statesmen. But they could see nothing, because nothing was there.

  ‘Now, if Your Imperial Majesty will be gracious enough to take off your clothes,’ said the swindlers, ‘then we will dress you in the new clothes right here in front of this big mirror.’

  So the Emperor took off all his clothes, and the swindlers pretended to hand him each of the new garments they were supposed to have made. Then they made out they were zipping up the trousers and straightening the collar and draping the cloak.

  ‘Wonderful! It’s amazing how well they suit Your Majesty! What a terrific fit!’ everyone started to say. ‘What a pattern! What colours! What a gorgeous cloak!’

  The Master of Ceremonies entered with an announcement. ‘The canopy to be borne above Your Majesty in the procession has arrived outside.’

  ‘Very well, I am ready,’ said the Emperor. ‘Don’t they suit me down to the ground?’ And he posed again in front of the mirror, trying to look as though he was gazing at his splendid new clothes.

  The servants, who were to carry the cloak, stooped down and groped about on the floor, as if they were picking up the cloak, and as they walked they pretended to be holding something up in the air, not daring to let on that they couldn’t see anything.

  So the Emperor marched under the canopy in the Grand Procession, and all the people in the streets and hanging out of the windows said, ‘Look! The Emperor’s new clothes are the finest he has ever had! What a perfect fit! What a gorgeous cloak!’ No one would let anyone else know that he couldn’t see anything, because that would have meant he was unfit for his job or incredibly stupid. Never had the Emperor’s clothes been such a howling success.

  ‘But he’s got nothing on!’ shouted a little child.

  ‘Good grief!’ exclaimed the courtiers. ‘Stupid child! His parents should take him home! It’s ridiculous!’ But the child’s remark was whispered from one person to another.

  ‘He’s got nothing on! There’s a little child saying he hasn’t got anything on!’

  ‘He hasn’t got anything on!’ shouted all the people at last. And the Emperor felt really uncomfortable, because it seemed to him that they were quite right. But somehow he thought to himself, ‘Gosh, well, I must go through with it, procession and all.’ So he drew himself proudly up to his full height, while his servants marched behind his behind, holding up the cloak that wasn’t there.

  Toby and the Wolf

  A young miller hereabouts had a dog called Toby, passed down from his father. The old hound was getting long in the tooth, and had grown hard of hearing, so he couldn’t guard the house as well as he used to. The miller neglected Toby, and the servants behaved as their master did. They gave Toby some shoe-leather whenever they passed him, and as often as not forgot to feed him. Toby had such a grim time of it, that he made up his mind to turn his back on the mill and chance his luck in the woods. On the way, he bumped into a wolf, who greeted him, ‘Nazdar! Comrade Toby! Where are you heading?’

  The dog told him what he had to put up with back at the mill, and swore he would stick it no longer.

  ‘Brother Toby,’ sai
d the wolf, ‘you’ve got plenty of years, but precious little nous. Why leave the mill now, in your old age, and scrape a miserable existence in the woods? Twice, when you were young, you saved the mill from bandits, and now I’m hearing how disgracefully you’ve been treated! Take a tip from Wolfie, and go back to the mill and see to it that the miller feeds you properly.’

  ‘Comrade Wolf,’ said Toby, ‘I would rather die of hunger than crawl back there.’

  ‘Don’t be so headstrong, Brother Toby,’ said the wolf. ‘Between us we’ll find the answer to your problems! Now, tomorrow, when the nursemaid comes out to the field that the miller is harvesting, she’ll be carrying his baby son. The moment she puts him down, I’ll sneak up and make off with him. Your job is to sniff out my trail and follow it. I’ll drop the brat in the grass beneath the great oak tree for you to find. Pick him up, take him back to the miller, and he’ll greet you like a hero!’

  The next day, the nursemaid went up to the field with food for the harvesters, and in one arm she was carrying the miller’s baby son. When she reached the field, she laid the baby down on a sheaf and started up joking and flirting with the reapers. The wolf crept up, seized the infant, and sped away into the woods.

  When the maid saw the wolf running for the trees with the baby in its jaws, she chased after it, sobbing and screaming for help, and too afraid to go home without her master’s child. In the meantime, the harvesters had sent a lad sprinting back to the mill to tell the miller what had happened. Half out of his mind with distress, the miller rushed to fetch the hunter, and the pair of them legged it into the woods. But before they’d got very far, Toby appeared back at the mill, carrying the baby safely in his mouth. The miller’s wife came running out, crying with joy, and she scooped up the baby and laid him in his cot. Then she patted and stroked Toby’s head and ordered that bread and milk be set down before him at once.

  When the miller came back and was told how Toby had saved his son, he felt so ashamed that he had neglected the old dog that he swore Toby would have nothing but the best from that day forward. And as the tale of the rescue spread, Toby was given a hero’s welcome wherever he went.

  One day, the wolf turned up to see Toby as he lay in the sun at the back of the mill. ‘Admit it, Brother, how sound my advice was,’ began the wolf. ‘You live in the lap of plenty now, so don’t forget! One good turn deserves another! I haven’t eaten for a week and I need you to help me.’

  Toby nodded. Then he said, ‘No problem, Brother Wolf. One of the maids is to be married tomorrow and the pantry is stuffed full of meat and pastry and other good scoff for the wedding feast. Let’s wait till dark: then we can get into the pantry through the back window and have a feast all of our own!’

  So that evening, when darkness fell, the two cronies climbed through the pantry window. They stuffed and supped all night until the wolf grew reckless. ‘Brother Toby!’ he yelled. ‘I’m so happy, I feel like a good old singsong!’

  ‘You’d better shut up and get out of here quickly,’ warned Toby, ‘or we’ll both be discovered and beaten!’

  But the wolf had lost the plot and threw back his head with a wild wolf howl, and his racket could be heard all over the house. The miller woke up and searched every room in the mill before he remembered that the food for the wedding banquet was laid out in the pantry. He went to look and found Toby and the wolf. He snatched up a stick and laid into the two thieves, beating them until the hair flew from their pelts.

  The wolf finally managed to escape, but the miller collared Toby and chained him up. In the morning, the miller’s wife pleaded with him to let Toby off the chain, insisting that he must have been led astray by the wolf. So the miller removed the chain but warned Toby to keep well clear of the wolf.

  Time passed, and late one night the wolf crept into the mill to persuade Toby to take revenge on the miller for the beating. Toby pointed out that the miller owned a powerful shotgun and could easily shoot them dead. But the wolf wouldn’t be put off, and bragged of his strength and cunning.

  ‘Ach, Brother Toby,’ sneered the wolf, ‘you’re talking like a coward. I’m not going to leave this place with an empty belly. The miller owns a fat old ram. For old times’ sake, I want you to drive it out of the flock for me. That way, I can kill it easily and eat my fill without any bother.’

  Toby remembered the miller’s warning about the wolf. Toby enjoyed his life at the mill now, and he had no desire to chuck it all away. But when he saw how angry the wolf was becoming, he grew scared of him and said, ‘Brother Wolf, the ram would be certain to bleat and the miller will come running. You must stand in front of the sheep pen with your mouth open. When I drive the ram out, you must seize him by the head to stop him bleating and drag him off to the woods sharpish.’

  The wolf was all for this and took up position outside the sheep pen. Toby jumped inside and drove the big strong ram towards the eager wolf. But the ram butted the wolf’s butt and the wolf turned a somersault and crashed down in the yard, unable to move. He moaned and groaned, and wheezed, ‘Brother Toby, the ram has knocked the breath out of my body! Keep him away from me!’

  The miller heard the wolf crying. He saw the ram out in the yard and the wolf there too. He snatched up his shotgun and fired at the wolf. But although he hit him in the rear, the wolf managed to drag himself away.

  Toby stretched out in his kennel, well pleased at the way matters had turned out. He told himself that he would never listen to the wolf again. But a few days later, what happened but the wolf turned up again at the mill to see Toby. ‘We have to make the miller suffer for shooting at me,’ he said. ‘I have three pellets lodged in my arse. To get even with him, I’m going to destroy his favourite colt.’

  Toby pleaded with the wolf not to do this, and said he would have no part in such a revenge. But the wolf bared his fangs at Toby. ‘I will pin you down and sink my teeth into your scrawny throat if you refuse to help me,’ he snarled. ‘Do what I say this instant or you won’t move from here alive. Drive the colt out of the stable so that I can fall upon it.’

  The yard was deserted and Toby knew that he could never outwit the wolf or fight him off on his own. So he went into the stable and untied the colt. Then he called quietly to the wolf, ‘Brother Wolf, make sure you bite the hind legs first!’

  The wolf obeyed Toby, and the young horse kicked out at him with all its strength, which was exactly what Toby had planned. The wolf leaped to one side, howling and yowling in pain and rage, for the colt’s hooves had knackered him badly. He made such a row that the miller heard him, and grabbing his shotgun, he rushed out into the yard and blasted the wolf dead.

  Toby sighed with relief as he came out of the stable unharmed. The wolf could lead him into mischief no more and would never trouble him again. For the rest of his puff, Toby could look forward to living happy ever after in the sunshine.

  The Juniper Tree

  Once upon a time, that very old people can still remember, there lived a man and his good and beautiful wife. They loved each other so much that the only thing they wished for was a little child. Each night before sleep they prayed for a child, but none came and nothing changed.

  There was a yard in front of their house and in the centre grew a juniper tree. One winter’s day, the wife stood under the juniper tree peeling an apple, and as she was peeling it, she cut her finger and her blood wept onto the snow.

  ‘Oh!’ cried the wife, and she sighed deeply. She grew sad as she looked at the tears of blood on the snow. ‘If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow.’ These words seemed to lighten her mood and she felt a glow of cheerfulness as though something might happen. Then she went inside.

  After a month, the snow was gone. After two months, everything was green. After three months, the earth grew flowers. After four months, the trees in the forest thickened and their green branches stretched and touched and intertwined. The birds began to sing and their songs tumbled from the trees among the falling blossom. So
on the fifth month had come and gone, and when the wife stood beneath the juniper tree, its sweet scent flooded her heart with happiness and she fell to her knees, pierced with joy. When the sixth month had passed, the fruit was full and swollen and she was serene. In the seventh month, she picked the juniper berries and ate them so obsessively that she became sick and moody. After the eighth month had passed, she pulled her husband to her and wept.

  ‘If I die,’ she cried, ‘bury me under the juniper tree.’

  After that, she was calm and contented until the ninth month was over. Then she had a child as red as blood and as white as snow. But when she looked at her baby for the first time, she was so ecstatic that she died.

  Her husband buried her under the juniper tree and wept night and day. As time passed, he began to feel better, but there were still days when he cried. At last, he stopped, and after more suns and moons had gone, he found another wife. Together, he and his second wife had a daughter, while his child from his first wife was a little boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. Whenever the woman looked at her daughter, her heart bloomed with love for her. But when she looked at the boy, the same heart jerked with resentment. She knew that he would always be there to get in the way of her daughter inheriting everything. Then the devil gripped her and twisted her feelings towards the boy until she became very cruel to him. She jabbed him from here to there, slapped, slippered, clipped and cuffed him until the poor little boy was living in fear. When he came home after school, his life was hell.

  One day, the woman went up to her room and her little girl came after her and asked, ‘Mutter, will you give me an apple?’

  ‘Ja, meine liebling,’ cooed the woman, and she chose her the most gorgeous apple from the chest, which had a heavy wooden lid and a big sharp iron lock.

  ‘Mutter,’ said the little daughter, ‘shouldn’t Brother have one too?’