Fairy Tales from the German Forests. Margaret Arndt

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       Margaret Arndt

      Fairy Tales from the German Forests

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664624963

Table of Contents

      INTRODUCTORY POEM

       WHAT'S THE USE OF IT?

       A CHRISTMAS STORY

       THE ENGINEER AND THE DWARFS

       KÄTHCHEN AND THE KOBOLD

       THIS WAY TO FAIRYLAND.

       CONDENSED FLOWERS FOR SALE.

       THE OLD KING

       THE DRAGON'S TAIL

       THE EASTER HARE

       THE EASTER HARE FAMILY

       MR AND MRS EASTER HARE.

       THE NIXY LAKE

       KING REINHOLD

       THE WITCH'S GRANDDAUGHTER

       PART I

       PART II

       PART III

       PART IV

       HOLIDAY ADVENTURES

       PART I

       PART II

       PART III

       PART IV

INTRODUCTORY POEMTable of Contents

"The stories that the fairies told

I learnt in English lanes of old,

Where honeysuckle, wreathing high,

Twined with the wild rose towards the sky,

Or where pink-tinged anemones

Grew thousand starred beneath the trees.

I saw them, too, in London town,

But sly and cautious, glancing down,

Where in the grass the crocus grow

And ladies ride in Rotten Row,

St. James's Park's a garden meet

For tiny babes and fairy feet.

But since I came to Germany,

The good folk oftener talk to me;

I find them in their native home

When through the forest depths I roam,

When through the trees blue mountains shine,

The heart of fairyland is mine."

WHAT'S THE USE OF IT?

       Table of Contents

A CHRISTMAS STORY

       Table of Contents

      In a village that was close to the great forest, though it had already become the suburb of a large town, lived a little girl named Hansi Herzchen. She was the seventh child of a family of seven, and she lived at No 7—— Street. So you see she was a lucky child, for seven is always a lucky number; but nothing had happened to prove her luck as yet.

      Her father was a clerk in the post office at the neighbouring town. He would have found it hard to make two ends meet with seven little mouths to fill, but that his wife had brought him substantial help. She was the daughter of a well-to-do farmer peasant and had a considerable dowry when she married. Moreover she was extremely thrifty and industrious. She never spent a halfpenny without carefully considering if a farthing would not do as well. Better £1 in the pocket than 19s. 11½d., she used to say. She drove wonderful bargains at the market. She had no eyes for the artistic and ornamental, though her house was so spick and span, that it was good to look at in its cleanliness and order. She had stored up everything she had possessed since her early youth, and was said to use pins that were at least twenty years old. She managed to put everything to use, and the boys' knickers were sometimes made of queer materials.

      One expression little Hansi often heard at home and that was the word "useful." When she brought in a fresh bunch of darling, pink-tipped daisies and wanted to find a corner for them and a tiny drop of water to put them in, the whole family would exclaim: "Throw them away, what do you want with those half-dead weeds; they're of no use." If one of the neighbours gave her a ball or toy, it was the same story: "We've no room for such rubbish here." Each child possessed a money-box, and every coin was immediately put in. They had never had a penny to spend in their lives.

      The garden was planted solely with vegetables and potatoes and herbs of the most useful character. The scarlet beans in summer, however, would brighten it up, and field poppies and dandelions sprang up in a quite miraculous way to Hansi's delight. For in each flower