Good Stories for Great Holidays: Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Children's Own ReadingOlcott, Frances Jenkins
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Good Stories for Great Holidays: Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Children's Own Reading
Olcott, Frances Jenkins
Children's literature; Holidays; Short stories; Storytelling
And when she opened the door there was another queer, little woman, in a
lilac frock and a green cap, standing on the threshold.
She, too, ran into the house without waiting to say, “By your leave,”
and picking up the distaff, began to put some wool on it.
Then before the housewife could get the door shut, a funny little
manikin, with green trousers and a red cap, came running in, and
followed the tiny women into the kitchen, seized hold of a handful of
wool, and began to card it. Another wee, wee woman followed him, and
then another tiny manikin, and another, and another, until it seemed
to the good housewife that all the fairies and pixies in Scotland were
coming into her house.
The kitchen was alive with them. Some of them hung the great pot over
the fire to boil water to wash the wool that was dirty. Some teased the
clean wool, and some carded it. Some spun it into yarn, and some wove
the yarn into great webs of cloth.
And the noise they made was like to make her head run round. “Splash!
splash! Whirr! whirr! Clack! clack!” The water in the pot bubbled over.
The spinning-wheel whirred. The shuttle in the loom flew backwards and
forwards.
And the worst of it was that all the Fairies cried out for something
to eat, and although the good housewife put on her griddle and baked
bannocks as fast as she could, the bannocks were eaten up the moment
they were taken off the fire, and yet the Fairies shouted for more.
At last the poor woman was so troubled that she went into the next room
to wake her husband. But although she shook him with all her might, she
could not wake him. It was very plain to see that he was bewitched.
Frightened almost out of her senses, and leaving the Fairies eating her
last batch of bannocks, she stole out of the house and ran as fast as
she could to the cottage of the Wise Man who lived a mile away.
She knocked at his door till he got up and put his head out of the
window, to see who was there; then she told him the whole story.
“Thou foolish woman,” said he, “let this be a lesson to thee never to
pray for things thou dost not need! Before thy husband can be loosed
from the spell the Fairies must be got out of the house and the
fulling-water, which they have boiled, must be thrown over him. Hurry
to the little hill that lies behind thy cottage, climb to the top of
it, and set the bushes on fire; then thou must shout three times: 'BURG
HILL'S ON FIRE!' Then will all the little Fairies run out to see if
this be true, for they live under the hill. When they are all out of the
cottage, do thou slip in as quickly as thou canst, and turn the kitchen
upside down. Upset everything the Fairies have worked with, else the
things their fingers have touched will open the door to them, and let
them in, in spite of thee.”
So the good housewife hurried away. She climbed to the top of the little
hill back of her cottage, set the bushes on fire, and cried out three
times as loud as she was able: “BURG HILL'S ON FIRE!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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