The Diamond Fairy Book. Various

      "THEY LIFTED UP THE CLOTH AND BEGAN TO SPREAD IT OUT" (p. 32).

      Then the Dreamer was highly delighted, for he was beginning to be afraid lest the village people should look enviously at him if he came home with his Princess and was King. He took a very touching leave of the King of Dreams, climbed the five hundred steps with his Princess, took the silver veil off her head and threw it down. Then he wanted to shut the trap-door, but it was so heavy that he could not hold it. So he let it fall, and the noise it made was as great as the noise of many cannons shot off at the same time, and for a moment he became unconscious. When he came to himself again he was sitting in front of his cottage with the Princess sitting on the mill-stone at his side, and she was of flesh and blood like any other person. She was holding his hand, stroking it, and saying: "You dear, good, stupid man, you have not dared tell me how much you love me for such a long time. Have you been very much afraid of me?"

      And the moon rose and illumined the river, the waves beat against the banks, and the forest rustled, but they still sat there and talked. Suddenly it seemed as if a small black cloud was passing over the moon, and all at once something like a large folded shawl fell at their feet; then the moon stood out again in her full glory. They lifted up the cloth and began to spread it out. But they took a long time over this, for it was very fine and folded many hundred times. When it was quite spread out, it looked like a large map; in the middle was a river, and on both sides were towns, forests, and lakes. Then they noticed that it was a kingdom, and knew that the good Dream-King must have sent it down to them from the sky. And when they looked at their little cottage it had become a beautiful castle, with glass stairs, marble walls, velvet carpets, and pointed blue-tiled towers. Then they took hands and went into the castle, where their subjects were already assembled. The servants bowed low, drums and trumpets sounded, and little pages went before them strewing flowers. They were King and Queen.

      The next morning the news that George the Dreamer had come back, and had brought a wife with him, ran like wildfire through the village. "She is probably very clever," the people said. "I saw her early this morning, when I went into the forest," said a peasant; "she was standing at the door with him. She is nothing special, quite an ordinary person, small and delicate-looking, and rather shabbily dressed. What did he see in her? He has nothing, and she probably has nothing!"

      So the stupid people chattered, for they could not see that she was a Princess; and in their stupidity they did not see that the house had changed into a great, wonderful castle—for the kingdom that had come down from the sky for George the Dreamer was an invisible one. So he did not trouble about the stupid people, but lived happily and contentedly in his kingdom with his Princess, who presented him with six children, each one more beautiful than the other, and they were all six Princes and Princesses. But no one in the village knew it, for they were quite ordinary people, and much too silly to notice it.

How Sampo Lappelill saw the Mountain King.

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      FAR away in Lapland, at a place called Aïmïo, near the River Jana, there lived, in a little hut, a Laplander and his wife, with their small son, Sampo.

      Sampo Lappelill was now between seven and eight years of age. He had black hair, brown eyes, a snub nose, and a wide mouth, which last is considered a mark of beauty in curious Lapland. Sampo was a strong child for his age; he delighted to dance down the hills in his little snow-shoes, and to drive his own reindeer in his own little sledge. The snow whirled about him as he passed through the deep drifts, until nothing of him could be seen except the tuft of his black forelock.

      "I shall never feel comfortable while he is from home!" said the mother. "He may meet Hisü's reindeer with the golden antlers."

      Sampo overheard these words, and wondered what reindeer it could be that had golden antlers. "It must be a splendid animal!" said he; "how much I should like to drive to Rastekaïs with it!" Rastekaïs is a high, dreary mountain, and can be seen from Aïmïo, from which it is five or six miles distant.

      "You audacious boy!" exclaimed the mother; "how dare you talk so? Rastekaïs is the home of the trolls, and Hisü dwells there also."

      "Who is Hisü?" inquired Sampo.

      "What ears that boy has!" thought the Lapp-wife. "But I ought not to have spoken of such things in his presence; the best thing I can do now is to frighten him well." Then she said aloud: "Take care, Lappelill, that you never go near Rastekaïs, for there lives Hisü, the Mountain King, who can eat a whole reindeer at one mouthful, and who swallows little boys like flies."

      Upon hearing these words, Sampo could not help thinking what good fun it would be to have a peep at such a wonderful being—from a safe distance, of course!

      Three or four weeks had elapsed since Christmas, and darkness brooded still over Lapland. There was no morning, noon, or evening; it was always night. Sampo was feeling dull. It was so long since he had seen the sun that he had nearly forgotten what it was like. Yet he did not desire the return of summer, for the only thing he remembered about that season was that it was a time when the gnats stung very severely. His one wish was that it might soon become light enough for him to use his snow-shoes.

      One day, at noon (although it was dark), Sampo's father said: "Come here! I have something to show you."

      Sampo came out of the hut. His father pointed towards the south.

      "Do you know what that is?" asked he.

      "A southern light," replied the boy.

      "No," said his father, "it is the herald of the sun. To-morrow, maybe, or the day after that, we shall see the sun himself. Look, Sampo, how weirdly the red light glows on the top of Rastekaïs!"

      Sampo perceived that the snow upon the gloomy summit, which had been so long shrouded in darkness, was coloured red. Again the idea flashed into his mind what a grand sight the terrible Mountain King would be—from a distance. The boy brooded on this for the remainder of the day, and throughout half the night, when he should have been asleep.

      He thought, and thought, until at length he crept silently out of the reindeer skins which formed his bed, and then through the door-hole. The cold was intense. Far above him the stars were shining, the snow scrunched beneath his feet. Sampo Lappelill was a brave boy, who did not fear the cold. He was, moreover, well wrapped up in fur. He stood gazing at the stars, considering what to do next.

      Then he heard a suggestive sound. His little reindeer pawed the ground with its feet. "Why should I not take a drive?" thought Sampo, and proceeded straightway to put his thought into action. He harnessed the reindeer to the sledge, and drove forth into the wilderness of snow.

      "I will drive only a little way towards Rastekaïs," said Sampo to himself, and off he went, crossing the frozen River Jana to the opposite shore, which—although the child was unaware of this fact—belonged to the kingdom of Norway.

      As Sampo drove, he sang a bright little song. The wolves were running round his sledge like grey dogs, but he did not mind them. He knew well that no wolf could keep pace with his dear, swift little reindeer. Up hill and down dale he drove on, with the wind whistling in his ears. The moon seemed to be racing with him, and the rocks to be running backwards. It was thoroughly delightful!

      Alas! at a sudden turning upon the downward slope of a hill the sledge overturned, and Sampo was pitched into a snow-drift. The reindeer did not observe this, and, in the belief that its master was still sitting behind it, it ran on. Sampo could not cry "Stop!" for his mouth was stuffed with snow.

      He lay there in the darkness, in the midst of the vast snowy wilderness, in which was no human habitation for miles around.

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