Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net FAIRY TALES FROM THE GERMAN FORESTS _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ "The Meadows of Play" (With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton; Illustrated by Edith Calvert.) London, ELKIN MATTHEWS, Vigo Street 2s. 6d. net [Illustration: "The Dwarf."] [Illustration: FAIRY TALES _from the_ GERMAN FORESTS FRAU ARNDT] LONDON: EVERETT & CO. LTD. 42 Essex Street, W.C. TO MY DAUGHTERS MARGARET AND BARBARA, AND TO MY NEPHEWS CHARLES AND STEPHEN JOHNSON, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED INTRODUCTORY POEM "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? A CHRISTMAS STORY 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 L1 in the pocket than 19s. 11-1/2d., 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.