The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 1: Fairy and wonder tales
Children's literature
So the butler got the gun, and went out to the wood; and when he saw
the young man he was going to shoot him. “Why would you do that?” said
he. So the butler told him all the father ordered him; and the young
man said, “Do not shoot me, but save me. And this is what you will do.
Go into the wood until you meet with a woodcock, and shoot it, and take
the heart out of it, for that is most like the heart of a man. Bring
the woodcock’s heart to my father’s house,” he said, “and throw it to
the dogs at the door.”
So the butler did that, and spared him, and took the woodcock’s heart
and threw it to the dogs at the door.
It was a good while after that, a beautiful young lady came to the
King’s doorway in a coach and four, and stopped at the door. “Send out
my husband to me here,” she said. So the eldest son came out to her.
“Was it you came to the garden for the apples?” says she. “It was,”
says he. “What things did you take notice of in the cottage where I
was?” says she.
So he began telling of this thing and that thing that never was in it
at all.
And when she heard that she gave him a clout that knocked his head as
solid as any stone in the wall.
Then the second son came out, and she asked him the same question, and
he told the same lies, and she gave him another clout that left his
head as solid as any stone in the wall.
When the King heard all that, he knew they had deceived him, and that
it was the youngest son who got the apples for his cure, and he began
to cry after him and to lament that he was not living to come back
again. “Would you like to know he is living yet?” says the butler. “I
would sooner hear it than any word ever I heard,” says the King.
“Well he is living yet, and is in the wood,” says the butler.
When the young lady heard that, she bade the butler bring her to where
he was, and they went together to the wood, and there they found him,
where he had been living on the fruits of trees through the most of the
year. When the young lady saw him, she said: “Was it you came to the
house where I was in the garden?” “It was,” says he.
“What things did you take notice of in it?”
“Here they are,” says he. And he put his hand in his pocket, and
brought out the gold rings and the golden garters, and the other signs
he had brought away.
So she knew that he was the right one, and she married him, and they
lived happy ever after, and there was great rejoicing in the King of
Ireland’s house.
HOK LEE AND THE DWARFS
Retold by Andrew Lang
There once lived in a small town in China a man named Hok Lee. He was a
steady, industrious man, who not only worked hard at his trade, but did
all his own housework as well, for he had no wife to do it for him.
“What an excellent, industrious man is this Hok Lee!” said his
neighbors. “How hard he works! He never leaves his house to amuse
himself or to take a holiday as others do!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account