The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
Children's literature
So the King’s son went on in the canoe till he came where the
Swan-Gander was standing on the shore. “Can you tell me,” says he,
“where can I get the apples that are in Burnett’s orchard? And can you
bring me there?” he said.
“Indeed,” said the Swan-Gander, “I am in no way obliged to your leader,
or to whoever it was sent you to me and gave you that teaching. And
those apples are well minded,” he said, “by wolves; and the only time
they sleep is for three hours once in every seven years. And it chances
they are asleep for those three hours at this time; and so I will bring
you there,” he said.
With that he stretched out his wings, and he bade the King’s son to get
on his back. And it was long before he could start flying with the
weight that was on him; but at last he flew away, and he brought the
King’s son to Burnett’s garden, and there was a high wall around it,
but he flew over the wall, and put him down in the garden. The King’s
son filled his bag with the apples, and when he had done that he went
looking around, and he came to a large cottage in the garden, and he
went in, and there was no one in the house but a beautiful young girl,
and she was asleep. So he went away; but he brought with him the gold
rings and the gold garters that he saw there in the window.
He got up again on the back of the Swan-Gander, but it was hard for it
to rise with the weight of the bag of apples. But it did rise at last,
and it brought him to where the old man was that was three hundred
years old. The King’s son gave one of the apples to the old man, and no
sooner did he eat it than his age left him, and he was like a boy of
fifteen years.
He went on then to the two other old men, and gave an apple to both of
them, and no sooner did they eat it than they were like young boys
again.
Then the King’s son went back to the crossroads, for it was the end of
the year and a day, and he was the first to come there, and he fell
asleep. The two brothers came and saw him there, and they stole the bag
of apples from under his head and put in the place of it a bag of
apples that were no use at all. Then they went on to their father’s
house, and they gave him the apples they had stolen, and he was cured
on the moment; but they told him that what the youngest son was
bringing to him was poison apples, that would bring him to his death.
The King was very angry when he heard that, and he went to his butler
and said, “Go out to the wood where my son is, and shoot him, and bring
his heart here with you on the top of a gun and throw it to the dogs at
the door; for I will never have him, or anything belonging to him,
brought into the house,” he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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