Canadian Fairy Tales — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Canadian Fairy Tales
John Stuart Mill · en
shall always eat only flies and insects. And you will always spin
downwards but never upwards, and you will often try to get back to the
star-country, but you shall always slip down again on the strand of
yarn you have spun." Then Fire-fly flashed his light and went quickly
away, opening and closing the shade of his lamp as he flitted among
the trees. And to this day the Spider Man lives as the humped man of
the lamp had spoken, because of the cruelty he practised on the
star-fairies in the olden days.
THE BOY WHO WAS CALLED THICK-HEAD
Three brothers lived with their old Indian mother in the forest near
the sea. Their father had long been dead. At his death he had little
of the world's goods to his credit and his widow and her sons were
very poor. In the place where they dwelt, game was not plentiful, and
to get food enough to keep them from want they had often to go far
into the forest. The youngest boy was smaller and weaker than the
others, and when the two older sons went far away to hunt, they always
left him behind, for although he always wished to accompany them they
would never allow him to go. He had to do all the work about the
house, and all day long he gathered wood in the forest and carried
water from the stream. And even when his brothers went out in the
spring-time to draw sap from the maple trees he was never permitted to
go with them. He was always making mistakes and doing foolish things.
His brothers called him Thick-head, and all the people round about
said he was a simpleton because of his slow and queer ways. His mother
alone was kind to him and she always said, "They may laugh at you and
call you fool, but you will prove to be wiser than all of them yet,
for so it was told me by a forest fairy at your birth."
The Chief of the people had a beautiful daughter who had many suitors.
But her father spurned them all from his door and said, "My daughter
is not yet of age to marry; and when her time of marriage comes, she
will only marry the man who can make great profit from hunting." The
two older sons of the old woman decided that one of them must win the
girl. So they prepared to set out on a great hunting expedition far
away in the northern forest, for it was now autumn, and the hunter's
moon had come. The youngest boy wanted to go with them, for he had
never been away from home and he wished to see the world. And his
mother said he might go. His brothers were very angry when they heard
his request, and they said, "Much good Thick-head can do us in the
chase. He will only bring us bad luck. He is not a hunter but a
scullion and a drudge fit only for the fireside." But his mother
commanded them to grant the boy's wish and they had to obey. So the
three brothers set out for the north country, the two older brothers
grumbling loudly because they were accompanied by the boy they thought
a fool.