Fairy dreams or, Wanderings in Elf-land
magnificent lily, fit emblem of her queenly beauty.
Rudolf gazed silently a few moments in admiration of that fair and
sovereign face; then, seeing that her cold blue eyes did not turn
toward him, he ventured to steal softly up behind her and to throw over
that regal head the magic veil.
For a moment there was no change; then, as the prince gazed eagerly
yet half regretfully at the proud, handsome face beneath the folds, and
wondered if his search was over, a slight shudder passed through that
motionless form; the faint rose tinge faded utterly from the cheek and
lip; the pale blue eyes lost all color; the hair became white as the
brow it surrounded, and, where Rudolf had found a stately queen, he now
beheld only a marble statue.
As he gazed horror stricken, the veil, stiffening as if frozen, broke
in two pieces, and with a light, tinkling sound fell upon the marble
floor.
Already a death chill ran through the veins of the young prince, and
he was on the point of sinking down lifeless at the feet of the marble
lily queen, when with a strong effort he snatched the veil from the
floor, and hastened as quickly as his torpid limbs would allow from
that icy throne. Pursuing again the windings of the brook, he soon
reached the side of his good horse, and, mounting hastily, put him to
his speed. For a considerable time he continued his journey without
meeting with any adventure of importance; but it so happened one
day, as he was dreaming of his father’s court and of what they would
say to his adventures, that he seemed suddenly enveloped in a soft
and fragrant air, while his ears were greeted with the warblings of
hundreds of merry little birds.
Turning suddenly, he perceived a wide and gently ascending path leading
off from the main road. Down this path came the soft gush of perfume
and music which had aroused him.
Again did the prince find himself overshadowed with festooning vines;
but this time they were roses, which peeped and nodded to him at every
turn, roses whose soft petals fluttered down upon his head and carpeted
his path, while their delicate fragrance filled the air. Roses of every
hue and degree; white, blush pink and deepest crimson, single roses and
double roses, climbing roses and tree roses, moss roses and thornless
roses; every rose that ever bloomed on this round earth clustered along
that pathway, each crowding before its neighbor to look at the handsome
prince, and nod a joyous welcome to him.
Dismounting from his horse and holding his plumed cap in his hand,
Rudolf walked slowly along the path, hoping, at every turn, to find
the divinity of this rose Eden. Nor had he long to look, for as the
path, making a sudden turn, came to an end, Rudolf saw before him a
bower formed by two graceful birches, which, arching toward each other,
supported, the one a white, the other a crimson climbing rose, which,
in their riotous luxuriance, having clothed every twig of the bending
birches with their blossoms, and interlaced above, waved exultingly in
the air their graceful, verdant limbs, as if to boast triumphantly of
having overcome every obstacle.
Upon a gently sloping bank beneath this odorous canopy reclined a
graceful maiden, clothed in a pure white robe, her golden hair curling
loosely about her snow-white shoulders, and her blue eyes gently
beaming with love and purity. A few moss-rose buds nestling at her
bosom, and a slender garland of wild roses about her head, were her
only ornaments. Upon her finger sat a ring-dove, to whose plaintive
cooing the maiden replied with soft caresses. A pair of humming-birds
buzzed about her head, plunging their dagger-like bills into the roses
of her garland, while a honey-bee loaded himself with sweets from the
buds at her bosom. All about her feet bloomed the wild roses, and a
tall bush of sweetbriar nodded caressingly over her fair head.
Prince Rudolf gazed eagerly at the beautiful picture for a moment, then
threw himself at the feet of the rose sylph.
“O flower of my dream!” murmured he, “have I at last found you? Art
thou the rose I sought? Wilt thou leave thy bower to bloom for me only?
Shall thy perfume and thy sweets be for my home and my people?”
The maiden said never a word, only her fair head drooped lower and
lower, and she hid her blushing face in her slender hands.
Gently and carefully the prince threw over that sunny head the magic
veil, which again was fair and whole as the day he received it, but,
oh sad and disappointing result! beneath the gauzy folds no longer was
visible the graceful form of a blushing maid, but only a slender bush
crowned with one lovely blush rose, its yellow stamens the color of the
maiden’s hair.
Grieved and disappointed, Rudolf stood regarding the transformation.
Suddenly he remembered the words of the wise Althoso: “If the veil
remains white and whole, leave it there till you have slept, then pluck
the flower and bring it home.”
White and whole the veil certainly was; and throwing himself upon the
ground, Rudolf resolutely closed his eyes, nor did he open them till
the hum of the birds and bees, the warmth of the summer morning, and
the stillness of the spot, had granted him the sleep he so longed for.
It was not, however, long, and the sun had not yet reached his height,
when Rudolf opening his eyes, started eagerly to his feet, and turned
to look at the rose.
There it stood as he had left it;--a lovely rose, yet nothing but a
rose.
Rudolf stood sadly before it, half resolved to pluck the flower from
its tree and try to rest content with that, when a sudden thought
flashed across his mind, and seizing his diamond spear, with its point
he gently touched the rose-bush.
The effect was instantaneous. In the spot where a moment before had
stood only a silent plant, Rudolf beheld with delight the slender
figure of his rose maiden, her yellow hair circled with a garland of
white moss buds, beneath which flowed the silvery folds of the veil,
shading but not concealing the faint blush of her cheeks and the deep
blue of her starry eyes, which timidly sought the ground.
“O my rose! O my lovely, long-sought flower!” cried the prince, seizing
her soft, white hand.
“Come, my Rose, my Rosa Munda, my flower of the whole earth! come to
bloom forever in my garden; to be cherished forever in my heart.”
The Rose drooped gently forward. The prince, taking her in his arms,
placed her upon Sunbeam’s back, mounted behind her, and with joyous,
loving hearts, they journeyed back to his father’s court, where, for
very many long and happy years, the beauty of the gentle Rose made all
around her happy and contented.
KÖNIG TOLV’S BRIDE
Far in the depths of the wild and gloomy forests of the Hartz mountains
stood a little hut, where dwelt the charcoal-burner, Karl Gatz and his
daughter Mabel.
Alone they dwelt for years before Mabel’s gentle mother had faded from
earth, chilled to death perhaps by the stern, morose husband, to whom
her parents had given her. She died, and one summer morning Gatz made
a grave for her, beneath the huge blasted pine which towered above his
cabin, and then returned to his charcoal burning with no difference
except, perhaps, an added gloom and silence in his wayward manner.
Little Mabel was never a joyous child; how should she be, when the tall
blasted pine brooded over her home, and her father, who seemed the
embodied spirit of the tree, threw as gloomy and baleful a shade over
her young heart.
From whence rose the cloud which shadowed all the life of these two,
no one knew; but the few poor peasants and mountain dwellers, who
alone had heard or cared to talk of so obscure a person, whispered
strange stories of a man with whom Karl Gatz had quarrelled, and who
had gone up the mountain to claim some money which the charcoal-burner
owed him, and never returned. There were no friends or relatives to
make inquiries into his fate, and the few who knew of the circumstance
shrugged their shoulders and said, “It is no concern of ours. If a fool
puts his head under the bear’s paw, must we run to pull him away?” So
no one ever asked what had become of Johan Brenner, but all agreed that
from that day the black and never lifting cloud had settled close and
thick upon the brow and heart of Karl Gatz.
One would have thought that under this dark and poison-dripping shade
all pure and lovely things must have withered and died as had the
charcoal-burner’s wife, but never in sunniest _parterre_ or most
lovingly cared for flower plot had bloomed a fairer, sweeter, more
sky-like flower than the dreamy Mabel. Light and gracefully moulded
as the fawn, fair and delicate as the wild anemone, her blue eyes had
gazed at heaven until they had caught its purest light, and the sun had
given his own rays to sparkle in her wavy tresses.
Between the father and daughter there could be but little sympathy or
love. The eyes of the silent man bent earthward, and had never marked
the wondrous beauty which the slow, sad years were unfolding in his
dark and lonely hut, nor had he once met the sad, appealing looks,
which, in the gloomy days since her mother died, the heart of the
love-longing maiden cast toward the only parent left her. He never
looked up, and the thirsty, fainting heart sadly turned away and lived
thereafter in its own loneliness.
Mabel had often been with her mother to the convent in the valley,
where the poor woman went to confess her fancied sins, and to comfort
her yearning heart by hearing of the love which is for all mankind, but
is seldom truly valued save by such as, like her, are stimulated by
earthly affliction.
While the mother prayed and wept, the little Mabel wandered, like a
gleam of summer through the vaulted corridors, and shone by turns into
all the narrow, tomblike cells.
The poor nuns, shut out from life and love, gladly welcomed this sweet,
fresh presence, beaming with joy and freedom; and many a sister did
penance on aching knees, for cherishing, through one wild moment, the
wish that she had been an earthly bride, and clasped a child like this
to a mother’s heart.
Finding how much the little maiden longed to be able to read and write,
good old sister Ursula offered to teach her, and found herself amply
rewarded by the warm, tearful smile with which the glad child kissed
her withered hand.
An apt and eager scholar did Mabel prove; and in the year which
followed, she learned to read and write with fluency and ease, and
was able to repay her kind old instructress for her pains by reading
in a sweet, hushed voice, those tender, loving promises and solemn,
thrilling aspirations, which filled the volumes of the scanty library,
and which the dim and fading eyes of sister Ursula could no longer
distinguish but with pain and uncertainty.
Little Mabel took great delight in these readings, and she longed to
have a book of her own, that she might pursue her studies at home.
Expressing this wish one day at the convent, sister Benedicta, with
the consent of the Lady Superior, gave her a copy of the mangled and
corrupted edition of the Holy Book, prepared for convents and the
Catholic use, while the Fraulein von Rosenberg, one of the noble young
ladies who boarded and were educated at the convent, called her to the
dormitory, and, producing from her trunk a little worn volume, she gave
it to her saying,
“So much religion and so many pious works are truly very edifying, dear
little one, but I think, for my part, it will do you no harm to read a
little of something more amusing; so take this volume of fairy tales,
which I have all by heart, and put it into the bosom of your frock.”
Mabel’s eyes sparkled like stars, with delight and gratitude, but