🧚 Opening, part 5 · page 2

“No, I cannot let you say good-bye with your kin.”82

“Well, I cannot help it—it must be so.83 Come and eat me up.84 Only at least let me take your measurements.85 I only want to see whether I shall slip in easily.”86

“All right!—measure away,” said the wolf.87

So the tailor went back, took hold of the wolf by his tail, twined his tail round in his hand, and began to whip the wolf.88 And the wolf struggled and tussled, roared and shrieked, and tore until he tore his tail loose, and he then took to his feet.89 So he ran away with all of his might, and he met seven other wolves.90 They said: “Why are you, grey wolf, tailless?”91

“Oh, the tailor tore it out.”92

“Where is the tailor?”93

“You see him there, on the road.”94

“All right—we will hunt after him.”95 And they started after the tailor.96

When the tailor heard the chase coming after him, and saw that it was a disagreeable business, he scaled up a tree as fast as he could.97 So the wolves arrived there and said: “We will stop here, brothers, and wait until the tailor comes down.98 Do you, manx-wolf, stop below, and we will each of us climb on the other’s shoulders.”99 So the manx-wolf lay at the bottom, and all the seven wolves went after the others and climbed up.100

When the tailor saw his ill-fate coming so near him, for they were nearer and nearer, he cried out to the top one: “It is nobody’s fault, only the manx-wolf’s!”101 So the manx-wolf was frightened, and jumped out from below and ran off.102 All the seven wolves tumbled down and chased after him, caught him up, and tore him to bits.103 But the tailor slid down the tree and went back home.104

THE TALE OF THE SILVER SAUCER AND THE CRYSTAL APPLE105

Once a peasant lived with his wife, and they had three daughters: two were finely dressed and clever, but the third was a simple girl; the sisters and the father and mother as well called her the Little Fool.106 They hustled the Little Fool, thrust her about this way and that and forced her to work.107 She never said a word and was always ready to weed the grass, break off lamp-splinters, feed the cows and ducks, and whatever anybody asked for the Little Fool would bring.108 They had only to say, “Fool, go and fetch this!” or “Fool, come and look here!”109

One day the peasant went with his hay to the fair, and he asked his daughters, “What shall I bring you as your fairing?”110

One daughter asked, “Buy me some red cloth for a sarafan.”111 The other asked, “Buy me some scarlet nankin.”112 But the Fool sat still and said nothing.113

Well, after all, the Fool was his daughter, and her father felt sorry for her, so he asked her, “What would you like to have, Fool?”114

So the Fool smiled and said, “Buy me, my own father, a silver saucer and a crystal apple.”115

“What do you mean?” asked the sisters.116

“I should then roll the apple on the saucer, and should speak words which an old woman taught me in return for my giving her a loaf of white bread.”117 So the peasant promised, and went away.118

Whether he went far or near, whether he took long or short, anyhow he went to the fair, sold his hay, bought the fairings, gave his one daughter the scarlet nankin, the other the red cloth for a sarafan and the Fool a silver saucer and a crystal apple.119 He came back home and he showed them.120 Both sisters were overjoyed, sewed sarafans, and mocked the Fool, and waited to see what she would do with her silver saucer and crystal apple.121 But the Fool did not eat the apple, but sat in a corner and whispered, “Roll, roll, roll, little apple, on the silver saucer, and show me all the cities and the fields, all the woods and the seas, and the heights of the hills and the fairness of heaven.”122

Then the apple rolled about on the saucer; a transparency came over the silver; and, on the saucer, all the cities, one after the other, became visible, all the ships on the seas, and the regiments in the fields, and the heights of the mountains, and the beauties of the sky.123 Sunset appeared after sunset and the stars gathered in their nocturnal dances: it was all so beautiful and so lovely as no tale can tell and no pen can write.124

Then the sisters looked on and they became envious and wanted to take the saucer away from their sister, but she would not exchange her saucer for anything else in the world.125 So the evil sisters walked about, called out and began to talk.126 “Oh, my darling sisters, let us go into the wood and pick berries and look for wild strawberries!”127 So the Fool gave her saucer to her father and herself went into the wood.128 She wandered about with her sisters, plucked the strawberries, and saw a spade lying on the grass; then the other sisters took the spade and began beating the Fool with it, slew the Fool, buried her under a silver birch, and came back to their father late at night, saying, “The Little Fool ran away from us, we could not find her, we went all over the wood searching for her.129 We suppose the wolves must have eaten her up.”130 But the father was sorry.131 She was a Fool, but she was his daughter after all, and so the peasant wept for his daughter, took the silver saucer and the apple, put them into a coffer and locked them up.132 And the sisters also wept for her.133

Soon a herd came by and the trumpet sounded at dawn.134 But the shepherd was taking his flock, and at dawn he sounded his trumpet and went into the wood to look for a little lamb.135 He saw a little hummock beside a silver birch, and on it all around ruby-red and azure flowers, and bulrushes standing above the flowers.136 So the young shepherd broke a bulrush, made a pipe of it, and a wonderful wonder happened, a marvellous marvel: the pipe began of itself to sing and to speak.137 “Play on, play on, my little pipe.138 Console my father, console my guiding light, my father, and tell my mother of me, and my sisters, the little doves.139 For they killed me, the poor one, and for a silver saucer have severed me from light, all for my enchanted apple.”140

People heard and ran together, the entire village thronged round the shepherd, asked him who had been slain.141 There was no end to the question.142 “Good folks all,” said the shepherd, “I do not know anything about it.143 I was looking for a little sheep in the wood, and I saw a knoll, on the knoll flowers, and a bulrush over the knoll.144 I broke off a bulrush, carved myself a pipe out of it, and the pipe began singing and speaking of itself.”145

Now it so happened that the father of the Little Fool was there, heard the words of the shepherd, wanted to lay hold of the pipe, when the pipe began singing, “Play on, play on, little pipe: this is my father; console him with my mother.146 My poor little self they slew, they withdrew from the white world, all for the sake of my silver vessel and crystal apple.”147