The Book of Stories for the Story-teller Part 28

The ball rolled a short way, and it rolled a long way, and at last it came to a miserable hut; the hut was standing on hen's legs and turning round and round. Ivan said to it: "Little hut, little hut!

stand the old way as thy mother placed thee, with thy front to me, and thy back to the sea!" And the little hut turned round with its front to him, and its back to the sea. The Tsarevich entered in, and saw the bony-legged Baba-Yaga lying on the stove, on nine bricks and grinding her teeth.

"Hillo! good youth, why dost thou visit me?" asked the Baba-Yaga.

"Fie, thou old hag! thou call'st me a good youth, but thou shouldst first feed and give me drink, and prepare me a bath, then only shouldst thou ask me questions."

The Baba-Yaga fed him and gave him to drink, and made ready a bath for him, and the Tsarevich told her he was seeking his wife, Vasilisa.

"I know," said the Baba-Yaga; "she is now with Koshchei. 'Tis hard to get thither, and it is not easy to settle accounts with Koshchei. His death depends upon the point of a needle. That needle is in a hare, that hare is in a coffer, that coffer is on the top of a high oak, and Koshchei guards that tree as the apple of his eye."

The Baba-Yaga then showed him in what place that oak grew: Ivan went thither, but did not know what to do to get at the coffer. Suddenly, how who can tell, the bear rushed at the tree and tore it up by the roots, the coffer fell and was smashed to pieces, the hare leaped out, and with one bound had taken cover.

But look! the other hare bounded off in pursuit, hunted him down and tore him to bits; out of the hare flew a duck and rose high, high in the air, but the other duck dashed after her, and struck her down, whereupon the duck laid an egg, and the egg fell into the sea.

Ivan, seeing the irreparable loss of the egg, burst into tears, when suddenly the pike came swimming ash.o.r.e, holding the egg between its teeth. He took the egg, broke it, drew out the needle and broke off its little point. Then he attacked Koshchei, who struggled hard, but wriggle about as he might he had to die at last.

Then Ivan went into the house of Koshchei, took Vasilisa, and returned home. After that they lived together for a long, long time, and were very, very happy.

_Oeyvind and Marit_[20]

BJoRNE BJoRNESON

Oeyvind was his name. A low, barren cliff overhung the house in which he was born; fir and birch looked down on the roof, and wild cherry strewed flowers over it. Upon this roof there walked about a little goat, which belonged to Oeyvind. He was kept there that he might not go astray; and Oeyvind carried leaves and gra.s.s up to him. One fine day the goat leaped down, and away to the cliff; he went straight up, and came where he never had been before.

[Footnote 20: From _A Happy Boy_ in J. G. Whittier's _Child Life in Prose_.]

Oeyvind did not see him when he came out after dinner, and thought immediately of the fox. He grew hot all over, looked round about, and called, "Killy-killy-killy-goat!"

"_Bay-ay-ay_," said the goat, from the brow of the hill, as he c.o.c.ked his head on one side and looked down.

But beside the goat there kneeled a little girl. "Is it yours--this goat?" she asked.

Oeyvind stood with eyes and mouth wide open, thrust both hands into the breeches he had on, and asked, "Who are you?"

"I am Marit, mother's little one, father's fiddle, the elf in the house, granddaughter of Ole Nordistuen of the Heide farms, four years old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights, I!"

"Are you really?" he said, and drew a long breath, which he had not dared to do so long as she was speaking.

"Is it yours, this goat?" asked the girl again.

"Ye-es," he said, and looked up.

"I have taken such a fancy to the goat. You will not give it to me?"

"No, that I won't."

She lay kicking her legs, and looking down at him, and then she said, "But if I give you a b.u.t.ter-cake for the goat, can I have him then?"

Oeyvind came of poor people, and had eaten b.u.t.ter-cake only once in his life; that was when grandpa came there, and anything like it he had never eaten before or since. He looked up at the girl. "Let me see the b.u.t.ter-cake first," said he.

She was not long about it, and took out a large cake, which she held in her hand. "Here it is," she said, and threw it down.

"Ow, it went to pieces," said the boy. He gathered up every bit with the utmost care; he could not help tasting the very smallest, and that was so good he had to taste another, and, before he knew it himself, he had eaten up the whole cake.

"Now the goat is mine," said the girl.

The boy stopped with the last bit in his mouth, the girl lay and laughed, and the goat stood by her side, with white breast and dark brown hair, looking sideways down.

"Could you not wait a little while?" begged the boy; his heart began to beat. Then the girl laughed still more, and got up quickly on her knees.

"No, the goat is mine," she said, and threw her arms round its neck, loosened one of her garters, and fastened it round. Oeyvind looked up.

She got up, and began pulling at the goat. It would not follow, but twisted its neck downward to where Oeyvind stood.

"_Bay-ay-ay_," it said.

But she took hold of its hair with one hand, pulled the string with the other, and said gently, "Come, goat, and you shall go into the room and eat out of mother's dish and my ap.r.o.n." And then she sang:

"Come, boy's goat, Come, mother's calf, Come, mewing cat In snow-white shoes.

Come, yellow ducks, Come out of your hiding-place; Come, little chickens, Who can hardly go; Come, my doves With soft feathers; See, the gra.s.s is wet, But the sun does you good; And early, early is it in summer, But call for the autumn, and it will come."

There stood the boy.

He had taken care of the goat since the winter before, when it was born, and he had never imagined he could lose it; but now it was done in a moment, and he would never see it again.

His mother came up humming from the beach, with wooden pans which she had scoured; she saw the boy sitting with his legs crossed under him on the gra.s.s, crying, and she went up to him.

"What are you crying about?"

"Oh, the goat, the goat!"

"Yes; where is the goat?" asked his mother, looking up at the roof.

"It will never come back again," said the boy.

"Dear me! How could that happen?"

He would not confess immediately.

"Has the fox taken it?"

"Ah, if it only were the fox!"