THE BLUE LIGHT

There was once on a time, a soldier who for many years had served the King faithfully. But when the war came to an end he could serve no longer because of the many wounds which he had received.

The King said to him, “You may return to your home, I need you no longer. You will not receive any more money, for only he receives wages who renders me service for them.”

Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, which he went toward, and came to a house wherein lived a Witch.

“Do give me one night’s lodging, and a little to eat and drink,” said he to her, “or I shall starve.”

“Oho!” she answered, “who gives anything to a runaway soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you will do what I wish.”

“What do you wish?” said the soldier.

“That you should dig all round my garden for me, to-morrow.”

The soldier consented, and next day labored with all his strength, but could not finish it by the evening.

“I see well enough,” said the Witch, “that you can do no more to-day. But I will keep you yet another night, in payment for which you must to-morrow chop me a load of wood, and make it small.”

The soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the Witch proposed that he should stay one night more. “To-morrow, you shall do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old, dry well, into which my light has fallen. It burns blue, and never goes out, and you shall bring it up again for me.”

Next day, the Old Woman took him to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the Blue Light, and made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the Blue Light away from him.

“No,” said he, perceiving her evil intention, “I will not give you the light, until I am standing with both feet upon the ground.”

The Witch fell into a passion, let him down again into the well, and went away.

The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the Blue Light went on burning. But of what use was that to him? He saw very well that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his pipe, which was still half full of tobacco. “This shall be my last pleasure,” thought he, pulled it out, lit it at the Blue Light and began to smoke.

When the smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little Black Man stood before him, and said, “Master, what are your commands?”

“What commands have I to give you?” replied the soldier, quite astonished.

“I must do everything you bid me,” said the Little Man.

“Good,” said the soldier; “then in the first place help me out of this well.”

The Little Man took him by the hand, and led him through an underground passage, but the soldier did not forget to take the Blue Light with him. On the way the Little Man showed him treasures hidden there, and the soldier took as much gold as he could carry.

When he was above, he said to the Little Man, “Now go and bind the old Witch, and carry her before the judge.”

In a short time she, with frightful cries, came riding by, as swift as the wind, on a wild tom-cat, nor was it long after that before the Little Man reappeared. “It is all done,” said he, “and the Witch is already hanging on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?” inquired the Little Man.

“At this moment, none,” answered the soldier; “you may return home. Only be at hand immediately, if I summon you.”

“Nothing more is needed than that you should light your pipe at the Blue Light, and I will appear before you at once.” Thereupon he vanished from sight.

The soldier returned to the town from which he had come. He went to the best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord furnish him a room as magnificent as possible.

When it was ready and the soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the Little Black Man and said, “I have served the King faithfully, but he has dismissed me, and left me to hunger, and now I want to punish him.”

“What am I to do?” asked the Little Man.

“Late at night, when the King’s Daughter is in bed, bring her here in her sleep; she shall do servant’s work for me.”

The Little Man said, “That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.”

When twelve o’clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the Little Man carried in the Princess.

“Aha! are you there?” cried the soldier, “get to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.”

When she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair. Then he stretched out his feet and said, “Pull off my boots for me,” and made her pick them up again, and clean and brighten them.

She, however, did everything he bade her, without opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock crowed, the Little Man carried her back to the royal Palace, and laid her in her bed.

Next morning, when the Princess arose, she went to her father, and told him that she had had a very strange dream. “I was carried through the streets with the rapidity of lightning,” said she, “and taken into a soldier’s room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.”

“The dream may have been true,” said the King. “I will give you a piece of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in it, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and leave a track in the streets.”

But unseen by the King, the Little Man was standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night, when the sleeping Princess was again carried through the streets, some peas certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the crafty Little Man had just before scattered peas in every other street. And again the Princess was compelled to do servant’s work until cock-crow.

Next morning, the King sent his people out to seek the track, but it was all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up peas, and saying, “It must have rained peas, last night.”

“We must think of something else,” said the King; “keep your shoes on when you go to bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide one of them there. I will soon find it.”

The Little Black Man heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to bring the Princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no way to overcome this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found in the soldier’s house it would go badly with him.

“Do what I bid you,” replied the soldier. And again this third night, the Princess was obliged to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under the bed.

Next morning, the King had the entire town searched for his daughter’s shoe. It was found at the soldier’s, and the soldier himself, who at the entreaty of the Little Man, had gone outside the city-gate, was soon brought back, and thrown into prison.

In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable things he had, the Blue Light and the gold, and had only one ducat in his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by.

The soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to him, “Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.”

His comrade ran thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the Little Black Man.

“Have no fear,” said the latter to his master. “Go wheresoever they take you, and let them do what they will, only take the Blue Light with you.”

Next day the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last favor of the King.

“What is it?” asked the King.

“That I may smoke one more pipe on my way.”

“You may smoke three,” answered the King, “but do not imagine that I will spare your life.”

Then the soldier pulled out his pipe and lighted it at the Blue Light. And as soon as a few wreaths of smoke had ascended the Little Man was there with a small cudgel in his hand, and said, “What does my lord command?”

“Strike down to earth that false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the King who has treated me so ill.”

Then the Little Man fell on them like lightning, darting this way and that, and whosoever was so much as touched by his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The King was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier’s mercy, and begged merely to be allowed to live. He gave him his kingdom for his own, and the Princess to wife.

THE SPINDLE, THE SHUTTLE, AND THE NEEDLE

There was once a girl whose father and mother died while she was still a little child. All alone, in a small house at the end of the village, dwelt her godmother, who supported herself by spinning, weaving, and sewing. The old woman took the forlorn child to live with her, kept her to her work, and educated her in all that is good.

When the girl was fifteen, the old woman became ill, called the child to her bedside, and said, “Dear Daughter, I feel my end drawing near. I leave you the little house, which will protect you from wind and weather, and my spindle, shuttle, and needle, with which you can earn your bread.”

Then she laid her hands on the girl’s head, blessed her, and said, “Only preserve the love of God in your heart, and all will go well with you.”

Thereupon she closed her eyes, and when she was laid in the earth, the maiden followed the coffin, weeping bitterly, and paid her the last mark of respect.

And now the maiden lived quite alone in the little house, and was industrious, and span, wove, and sewed, and the blessing of the good old woman was on all that she did. It seemed as if the flax in the room increased of its own accord, and whenever she wove a piece of cloth or carpet, or had made a shirt, she at once found a buyer who paid her amply for it. So that she was in want of nothing, and even had something to share with others.

About this time, the Son of the King was traveling about the country looking for a Bride. He was not to choose a poor one, and did not want to have a rich one. So he said, “She shall be my wife who is the poorest, and at the same time the richest.”

When he came to the village where the maiden dwelt, he inquired, as he did wherever he went, who was the richest and also the poorest girl in the place? They first named the richest; the poorest, they said, was the girl who lived in the small house quite at the end of the village.

The rich girl was sitting in all her splendor before the door of her house, and when the Prince approached her, she got up, went to meet him, and made him a low curtsey. He looked at her, said nothing, and rode on.

When he came to the house of the poor girl, she was not standing at the door, but sitting in her little room. He stopped his horse, and saw, through the window on which the bright sun was shining, the girl sitting at her spinning-wheel, busily spinning. She looked up, and when she saw that the Prince was gazing in, blushed all over her face, let her eyes fall, and went on spinning. I do not know whether, just at that moment, the thread was quite even; but she went on spinning until the King’s Son had ridden away again.

Then she stepped to the window, opened it, and said, “It is so warm in this room!” but she still looked after him as long as she could see the white feathers in his hat. Then she sat down to work again in her own room and went on with her spinning. And a saying which the old woman had often repeated when she was sitting at her work, came into her mind, and she sang these words to herself:

“_Spindle, my Spindle, haste, haste thee away, Here to my house bring the wooer, I pray._”

And what do you think happened? The spindle sprang out of her hand in an instant, and out of the door. And when, in her astonishment, she got up and looked after it, she saw that it was dancing out merrily into the open country, and drawing a shining golden thread after it. Before long, it had entirely vanished from her sight.

As she had now no spindle, the girl took the weaver’s shuttle in her hand, sat down to her loom, and began to weave.

The spindle, however, danced continually onward, and just as the thread came to an end, reached the Prince.

“What do I see?” he cried; “the spindle certainly wants to show me the way!” He turned his horse about, and rode back with the golden thread. The girl was, however, sitting at her work singing:

“_Shuttle, my Shuttle, weave well this day, And guide the wooer to me, I pray._”

Immediately the shuttle sprang out of her hand and out by the door. Before the threshold, however, it began to weave a carpet which was more beautiful than the eyes of man had ever yet beheld. Lilies and roses blossomed on both sides of it. And on a golden ground in the centre green branches ascended, under which bounded hares and rabbits. Stags and deer stretched their heads in between them. Brightly-colored birds were sitting in the branches above. They lacked nothing but the gift of song. The shuttle leapt hither and thither, and everything seemed to grow of its own accord.

As the shuttle had run away, the girl sat down to sew. She held the needle in her hand and sang:

“_Needle, my Needle, sharp-pointed and fine, Prepare for a wooer this house of mine._”

Then the needle leapt out of her fingers, and flew everywhere about the room as quick as lightning. It was just as if invisible spirits were working. They covered tables and benches with green cloth in an instant, and the chairs with velvet, and hung the windows with silken curtains.

Hardly had the needle put in the last stitch, than the maiden saw through the window the white feathers of the Prince, whom the spindle had brought thither by the golden thread. He alighted, stepped over the carpet into the house, and when he entered the room, there stood the maiden in her poor garments, but she shone out from them like a rose surrounded by leaves.

“You are the poorest and also the richest,” said he to her. “Come with me, you shall be my Bride.”

She did not speak, but she gave him her hand. Then he kissed her, and led her forth, lifted her on to his horse, and took her to the royal castle, where the wedding was solemnized with great rejoicings.

The spindle, shuttle, and needle were preserved in the treasure-chamber, and held in great honor.