W. H. D. Rouse

“ The Crab poked his eyes out of the water. You know a crab’s eyes grow on a kind of little stalk; and this Crab was so big, that his eyes looked like two thick tree-trunks, with a cannon-ball on the top of each. Now this Crab [4] was a great flirt, or rather he used to be a great flirt, but lately he had nobody to flirt with, because he had eaten up all the creatures that came near him. And Mrs. Elephant was a beautiful elephant, with a shiny brown skin, and elegant flapping ears, and a curly trunk, and two white tusks that twinkled when she smiled. ”

“ When he was in the tree once more, he picked off a nut that was growing on the tree, and dropped it upon the pig’s nose. The pig woke up, raised his head, and looked round for the diamond; he was a very intelligent pig, indeed he was really not a pig at all, but a great magician, who used to fly about in the shape of a pig because he was as wicked as could be, and preferred being a pig rather than a man. There are really a great many people like that, only we see them in the shape of men and do not know the difference. ”

“ But it is a long lane that has no turning; and at last the Great Yellow King died. When a king or queen dies, people are generally very sorry, and wear mourning for them; but when the Great Yellow King died there was such rejoicing and merriment as had not been known for many a long day. All the shops were shut, and all the [85] schools had a whole holiday; there were raree-shows and merry-go-rounds, and everybody high and low was half daft with joy.
But one man was not joyful. On the steps of the palace sat the Yellow King’s porter, sighing and sobbing, weeping and wailing. ”

“ By-and-by in she came; he pretended to be asleep, and looked out of the tail of his eye. She was still munching and crunching, and as she munched she muttered:
“Man’s meat, man’s meat,
That’s what Goblins like to eat!”
She said it over and over again, then lay down; and soon she was snoring loudly.
The captain was horribly frightened to find he had married a Goblin. What was he to do? They could not fight with Goblins, and they were in the Goblins’ power. If they had a ship they might have sailed away, because Goblins hate the water worse than a cat; but their ship was gone. ”

“ As he turned the diamond about in his hand and saw it flash, he suddenly thought to himself, “What if the pig should wake? He looks fierce, he has great sharp tusks, and I have nothing to defend myself with. ”

“ The Goblin, however, was not going to let them off so easily; he wanted his dinner too. After waiting a long time, with never a sneeze from one or the other, he raised a cloud of fine dust; that was rather mean of him, but still he was very hungry, and did not stick at trifles. Sure enough, the father nearly sneezed his head off.
The Goblin chuckled, and made ready to pounce from his perch and devour the pair of them. But the son happened to see him, and, being a sharp lad, he guessed the truth. “God bless you, father!” says he; “may you live a hundred years!” ”

“ In fact, they were as like as two peas in a pod.
All this time the horses were champing their bits and pawing the ground, as if they would like to jump over each other’s heads; and I daresay the Kings were getting impatient too, though they were much too dignified to say anything. And there they might have stayed till doomsday, but that King Godfrey’s coachman hit on a fine idea. He suggested that perhaps one of them was a better King than the other; what were his master’s virtues, would the other coachman kindly tell him? ”

“ Two oxen was all he had, and one of them died.
The poor Farmer was in despair. One ox was not enough to draw the plough over the heavy land; and he had no money to buy another. So he sent a message to his son, that he was wanted at home.
When the son came, his father told him that one of his oxen was dead, and he had no money to buy another. So he begged his son to ask the King to give him an ox.
“No, no,” said his son, “I am always asking the King for something. If you want an ox, you must ask him yourself.” ”

“ Perhaps the first boy had not spoken nicely; and he had made a verse of poetry too, which he thought would just suit the old Gardener. So in he came with “Good morning, Mr. Lacknose!”
“Good morning, boy,” said the old man. “And what do you want?”
Then the boy put on a coaxing smile, and said:
“In the autumn seeds are sown,
And ere long they’re fully grown;
May your nose sprout up like these!
Give me a little posy, please!”
“There!” he thought, “the old fellow will like that, because he is a Gardener.” But not a bit of it! The Gardener saw through his trick, and was angrier than ever. ”

“ There was once a man who went on a journey, and he asked a friend to take charge of his plough till he should return. The friend promised to take great care of it. But no sooner was the man gone than he sold the plough and put the price in his own pocket. Was not that a mean trick to serve a friend?
The man came back, and asked his friend for the plough.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” the friend replied; “my house is infested with rats, and one night a very big rat came and ate it up.”
“Ah well,” said the man, “what can’t be cured must be endured! ”

“ Once upon a time there was a lake in the mountains, and in that lake lived a huge Crab. I daresay you have often seen crabs boiled, and put on a dish for you to eat; and perhaps at the seaside you have watched them sidling away at the bottom of a pool. Sometimes a boy or girl bathing in the sea gets a nip from a crab, and then there is squeaking and squealing. But our Crab was much larger than these; he was the largest Crab ever heard of; he was bigger than a dining-room table, and his claws were [2] as big as an armchair. Fancy what it must be to have a nip from such claws as those! ”

“ Animals in the forest have no bottles and glasses to drink out of, so if they are thirsty they have to go down to a pool. Now in a certain great forest there was a pool, in which lived a horrible Goblin. He was big and black, like an immense monkey, with an immense mouth, and four rows of sharp teeth; but he could not come out of the water, because he had no nose, but only gills like a fish. So if any animal came down into the water to get a drink, he pounced upon him at once and gobbled him up ”

“ The Snake thanked him for his kindness and said:
“You have saved my life, good Hermit! What can I do for you? You seem to be a poor man; I am rich, and if you ever want money just come to my hole and call ‘Snake,’ and you shall have all my treasure. Good-bye!” The Rat said the same.
The Parrot was very sorry to think that she had no money, so she said: “Silver and gold have I none; but if you ever are hungry, and want some rice, come to my tree [53] and call ‘Parrot,’ and I’ll get you as much rice as ever you like.” ”

“ They exchanged the axe and the diamond; the old man turned it over in his hand, chuckling greedily. As soon as the young man got grip of the axe, he smacked the steel, and says he, “Heads!” In a jiffy the axe sliced through the old man’s neck like a turnip, and he had no more head than legs.
Then the traveller picked up the diamond, and put it in his pocket. So now he had two magic things instead of one. He blessed his luck, and fell asleep very happily inside the old magician’s hut. ”

“ The waves beat and battered it, and turned it topsy-turvy, and the end of it [15] was that every soul was drowned except the poor young man.
The waves washed him ashore, more dead than alive, and on the shore he lay till next morning, when the sun warmed him and woke him up from his faint. He got up and looked about him, and wandered over the place, which he found was an island. It did not take him long to walk round it; and then he saw that it was a small island, and far as the eye could reach not another speck of land was to be seen. ”

“ Then the traveller showed his diamond, and told the old man what a wonderful stone it was, and how it gave any one power to fly through the air.
“If you will give me your diamond,” said the old man, [20] “I will give you my axe. You see I have no legs, so you may wonder how I live. This is the way I live. If I slap this axe on the handle, and say, Wood and fire! away it flies, and cuts wood and kindles a fire. If I slap the steel, and say, Heads! away it flies, and chops off the head of a goat or any animal I want; and then it brings me meat for my dinner. ”

“ Picking up the bowl and the drum, and feeling to see that his axe and diamond were safe, he wished himself at the gate of the nearest city.
Now the king of this city was a very cruel king. He used to rob and murder even his own subjects; and as for strangers, he had short shrift and no mercy for them. So when the king heard that there was a stranger outside the gates, he made up his mind to have some sport; and sent out a company of soldiers to fetch him in. The young man beat his drum, and they all took to their heels! You may imagine how angry the king was to hear this ”

“ So he thanked the Mouse, and went down to the village, and bought him a beautiful piece of meat. After this the Mouse every day brought the Farmer a golden sovereign, and every day the Farmer gave him a big chunk of meat. Thus in a few weeks Mousie grew quite fat.
But the Farmer had a big black cat that used to prowl about watching for mice. It used never to notice the Farmer’s own favourite Mouse while the Mouse was thin; but when he grew sleek and fat and shiny, Grimalkin (which was the Cat’s name) lay in wait for him one day and pounced upon him. Poor little Mousie was terrified. ”

“ Those are the bones of the fish that used to live in your pool. I ate them, and I’m going to eat you!”
“Are you, though!” said the Crab, and gave the Crane’s neck a little nip.
Then the Crane saw what a fool he had been to let a Crab put a claw round his neck. He knew that the Crab could kill him if he liked, and he was frightened to death at the thought. People who try to deceive others often pay for it themselves; and that is what happened to the Crane. ”

“ Next day the Fowler sounded his imitation of the quail’s note, and the birds flocked from far and near; then, when a good many had gathered in a clump within his reach, he cast the net, which fell over them and made them all prisoners. They all did what the wise Quail had told them; each quail put his head through one of the meshes, then at a word they were all away together, bearing the net with them. After some little time they saw a large bush, and dropped upon this bush; then the net was held up by the bush, while all the birds got away underneath. ”

“ The Quail and the Falcon
There once was a young Quail that lived on a farm. When the farmer ploughed up the land, Quailie used to hop about over the clods and pick up seeds, or weeds, or worms, or anything that the plough turned up, and he ate these and lived on them.
You might think this was very nice for him; he had no trouble to find food, because the ploughman turned it up; he had only to hop along after the plough and peck. Not a bit of it; he must needs better himself, as he said; so one fine day he flew away over the farm, away to the forest which fringed it ”

“ Now the servants had had enough of this young bully; and thought they, “What if we pitch him into the river, where the current is strong, and just leave him there! [50] We can easily pretend he was carried away where we could not reach him; and if the King finds us out, and puts us to death—anyhow, death is better than his eternal bullying.” So they pitched him head over heels into the water, though he screamed and struggled, and then they went home and told the King that he had gone in to bathe, and a flood carried him away. ”

“ It is a wishing bowl. Whenever you are hungry all you have to do is to wish for something in it, and there it is; milk, or soup, or wine; anything that can go in a bowl. And if you turn it over, as you saw me do just now, a rushing, roaring river pours out, and surrounds you, or, if you like, it will flood a whole country and drown every living thing.”
“Dear me!” said the young man, “that is a wonderful bowl. Well, I agree; I’ll give you my diamond for it.” So they exchanged the bowl and the diamond. The old man took the diamond in his hand and watched it sparkle ”

“ I don’t know whether Streaky was ashamed of what he had said; creatures like Streaky are very thick-skinned, and it takes a great deal to make them ashamed; but anyhow he had to go back, and this time he must fly by himself, for it was hardly likely that his brothers would [92] carry him when he had been so rude. He got back a few days later, tired and hungry, and spent the rest of his days on the dust-heap, eating carrion. What his mother thought of it all I don’t know; but King Goose never went to see them any more. ”

“ He often noticed the little Mouse sitting with his head peeping out of the hole, but as he was a very kind Farmer, he never hurt the Mouse; and now and then when he was having his own dinner, he would throw the Mouse a bit of cheese.
The Mouse was very grateful to the Farmer, and wondered what he could do to show it. At last he thought of the treasure; for this Mouse was sensible enough to know that Farmers are very pleased to get a golden sovereign now and again. ”