The Pink Fairy Book. Andrew Lang

hammering from outside. The watchman was blowing his horn: a great fire had broken out; the whole town was in flames.

      Was it in the house? or was it at a neighbour’s? Where was it?

      The alarm increased. The grocer’s wife was so terrified that she took her gold earrings out of her ears and put them in her pocket in order to save something. The grocer seized his account books. and the maid her black silk dress.

      Everyone wanted to save his most valuable possession; so did the Goblin, and in a few leaps he was up the stairs and in the student’s room. He was standing quietly by the open window looking at the fire that was burning in the neighbour’s house just opposite. The Goblin seized the book lying on the table, put it in his red cap, and clasped it with both hands. The best treasure in the house was saved, and he climbed out on to the roof with it—on to the chimney. There he sat, lighted up by the flames from the burning house opposite, both hands holding tightly on his red cap, in which lay the treasure; and now he knew what his heart really valued most—to whom he really belonged. But when the fire was put out, and the Goblin thought it over—then—

      ‘I will divide myself between the two,’ he said. ‘I cannot quite give up the grocer, because of the jam!’

      And it is just the same with us. We also cannot quite give up the grocer—because of the jam.

The House in the Wood

       Table of Contents

From the German of Grimm.

       Table of Contents

      A poor woodcutter lived with his wife and three daughters in a little hut on the borders of a great forest.

      One morning as he was going to his work, he said to his wife, ‘Let our eldest daughter bring me my lunch into the wood; and so that she shall not lose her way, I will take a bag of millet with me, and sprinkle the seed on the path.’

      When the sun had risen high over the forest, the girl set out with a basin of soup. But the field and wood sparrows, the larks and finches, blackbirds and green finches had picked up the millet long ago, and the girl could not find her way.

      She went on and on, till the sun set and night came on. The trees rustled in the darkness, the owls hooted, and she began to be very much frightened. Then she saw in tile distance a light that twinkled between the trees. ‘There must be people living yonder,’ she thought, ‘who will take me in for the night,’ and she began walking towards it.

      Not long afterwards she came to a house with lights in the windows.

      She knocked at the door, and a gruff voice called, ‘Come in!’

      The girl stepped into the dark entrance, and tapped at the door of the room.

      ‘Just walk in,’ cried the voice, and when she opened the door there sat an old gray-haired man at the table. His face was resting on his hands, and his white beard flowed over the table almost down to the ground.

      By the stove lay three beasts, a hen, a cock, and a brindled cow. The girl told the old man her story, and asked for a night’s lodging.

      The man said:

      Pretty cock,

       Pretty hen,

       And you, pretty brindled cow,

       What do you say now?

      ‘Duks,’ answered the beasts; and that must have meant, ‘We are quite willing,’ for the old man went on, ‘Here is abundance; go into the back kitchen and cook us a supper.’

      The girl found plenty of everything in the kitchen, and cooked a good meal, but she did not think of the beasts.

      She placed the full dishes on the table, sat down opposite the gray-haired man, and ate till her hunger was appeased.

      When she was satisfied, she said, ‘But now I am so tired, where is a bed in which I can sleep? ‘

      The beasts answered:

      You have eaten with him,

       You have drunk with him,

       Of us you have not thought,

       Sleep then as you ought!

      Then the old man said, ‘Go upstairs, and there you will find a bedroom; shake the bed, and put clean sheets on, and go to sleep.’

      The maiden went upstairs, and when she had made the bed, she lay down.

      After some time the gray-haired man came, looked at her by the light of his candle, and shook his head. And when he saw that she was sound asleep, he opened a trapdoor and let her fall into the cellar.

      The woodcutter came home late in the evening, and reproached his wife for leaving him all day without food.

      ‘No, I did not,’ she answered; ‘the girl went off with your dinner. She must have lost her way, but will no doubt come back to-morrow.’

      But at daybreak the woodcutter started off into the wood, and this time asked his second daughter to bring his food.

      ‘I will take a bag of lentils,’ said he; ‘they are larger than millet, and the girl will see them better and be sure to find her way.’

      At midday the maiden took the food, but the lentils had all gone; as on the previous day, the wood birds had eaten them all.

      The maiden wandered about the wood till nightfall, when she came in the same way to the old man’s house, and asked for food and a night’s lodging.

      The man with the white hair again asked the beasts:

      Pretty cock,

       Pretty hen,

       And you, pretty brindled cow,

       What do you say now?

      The beasts answered, ‘Duks,’ and everything happened as on the former day.

      The girl cooked a good meal, ate and drank with the old man, and did not trouble herself about the animals.

      And when she asked for a bed, they replied:

      You have eaten with him

       You have drunk with him,

       Of us you have not thought,

      Now sleep as you ought!

      And when she was asleep, the old man shook his head over her, and let her fall into the cellar.

      On the third morning the woodcutter said to his wife, ‘Send our youngest child to-day with my dinner. She is always good and obedient, and will keep to the right path, and not wander away like her sisters, idle drones!’

      But the mother said, ‘Must I lose my dearest child too?’

      ‘Do not fear,’ he answered; ‘she is too clever and intelligent to lose her way. I will take plenty of peas with me and strew them along; they are even larger than lentils, and will show her the way.’

      But when the maiden started off with the basket on her arm, the wood pigeons had eaten up the peas, and she did not know which way to go. She was much distressed, and thought constantly of her poor hungry father and her anxious mother. At last, when it grew dark, she saw the little light, and came to the house in the wood. She asked prettily if she might stay there for the night, and the man with the white beard asked his beasts again:

      Pretty cock,

       Pretty hen,

       And you, pretty brindled cow,

       What do you say now?

      ‘Duks,’