Dwarf willow

“ I noticed three species of dwarf willows, one with narrow leaves, growing at the very summit of the mountain in cracks of the rocks, as well as on patches of soil, another with large, smooth leaves now turning yellow. The third species grows between the others as to elevation ”

“ That seems a large price, but the dwarf is as crafty as he is wicked, though his craft seldom does him much good, and he thinks that even if he gives up all his treasure he can soon pile up as much more, with the help of the ring. So, by the power of the ring, he calls the dwarfs to bring him the treasure, and up they come with it, out of the cleft of the rocks, and they pile it in a great, glittering heap just there where the new fire is beginning to burn so bright. ”

“ A hundred years or so ago, many stories were told by old folks about the dwarfs. One of these will show how kind, obliging, and useful, or how surly and troublesome, the dwarfs could be—according as they are treated by merry, or by grumpy folks.
For example, Mr. Hilty was a dairy farmer, or shepherd, who was always ready to treat a dwarf with a cocoanut dipper full of cream. Because of this, the dwarfs were willing, whenever he called them, to look after his herds, when he wanted to leave his chalet, in the high pastures, and go down into the valley, to sell his cheeses, or to buy groceries. ”

“ Wasn't that puffickly awful, dwarf?"
"It chills my marrow, Snow-white. Go on!"
"What is your marrow? what does it look like? why do you have it, if it gets cold so easy as that? I wouldn't! Well! So at last the Princess said she guessed she would marry the King of the Golden Mines, 'cause he was puffickly beautiful, and most prob'ly the old dwarf wouldn't dare to say a word when he found how beautiful he was, and strong and big and rich and everything."
"No!" said the dwarf, bitterly. "The poor dwarf would have no chance, certainly, against that kind of king. ”

“ At that the child laughed aloud, instead of screaming, as she had just been beginning to think she might; and then in a moment there was the dwarf, looking in at the green entrance, smiling and nodding at her.
"Oh, you dear dwarf!" said the child. "I am glad to see you. I forgotted where I was in this funny place. Isn't it a funny place, dwarf? how did you get here? what made you know about it? why don't you always live here all the time? what's that that's bright up there?"
Indeed, the hollow in the tree made a good-sized room enough, if a person were not too big. ”

“ Fall through tropic din with a clatter of light.
The crooked dwarf now ripples the strings of a mandoline,
His floating voice has wings that brush us like a butterfly;
Music fills the mountains
With a riot of fountains
That spray back on the hot plain like a waterfall.
Smaller grow the dwarfs, singing "I'll bring shoes of satin,"
Smaller they grow, fade to golden motes, then die. ”

“ If the dwarf is short and ugly, he is tall and handsome; if the dwarf's face has a scowl of wicked hatred and cunning, his has a smile that beams with kindliness and candor; if the dwarf is old and crooked and rough and hairy, he is young and straight and graceful and fair. ”

“ Mr. Wilkinson relates an anecdote of a near relation of his own, who, although, "not more imbued with superstition than the majority," firmly believed that he had once seen "a real dwarf or fairy, without the use of any incantation. He had been amusing himself one summer evening on the top of Mellor Moor, near Blackburn, close to the remains of the Roman encampment, when his attention was arrested by the appearance of a dwarf-like man, attired in full hunting costume, with top boots and spurs, a green jacket, red hairy cap, and a thick hunting whip in his hand. ”

“ Do you know that you are a dwarf—that you are so ugly that one cannot bear to look at you—and that I should have killed you myself long before this if you had been worthy of such a glorious death?”
The Yellow Dwarf, deeply enraged at these words, set spurs to his cat, which yelled horribly, and leaped hither and thither—terrifying everybody except the brave King, who pursued the Dwarf closely, till he, drawing a great knife with which he was armed, challenged the King to meet him in single combat, and rushed down into the courtyard of the palace with a terrible clatter. ”

“ Then back comes the other dwarf, who wears the helmet and the ring, driving before him a crowd of his fellows, all laden down with gold and gems, and they throw them in a pile. They are so rich and dazzling, and there is such a quantity of them that the fire actually burns brighter there in the corner where they have heaped them up. The dwarf drives all his workmen away, and then sulkily asks the gods what they want here, for with his ring and his helmet he thinks that he is just as good as any of the gods. ”

“ One of them tells of a Troll Giant who wanted to punish a farmer; so he filled one of his gloves with sand, and poured it out over the farmer's house, which it quite covered up; and with what was left in the fingers he made a row of little sand hillocks to mark the spot.
The Giants had their day, and died out, and their places were taken by the Dwarfs. Some of the most wonderful dwarf stories are those which are told in the island of Rügen, in the Baltic Sea. These stories are of three kinds of dwarfs: the White, and the Brown, and the Black, who live in the sand-hills. ”

“ In this case the small male reproduced his small Mexican great-grandsire, while the large males took after their West Highland ancestors.
But dwarfs often enough turn up in old-established “pure” breeds, and now and again a dwarf is found in an otherwise normal human family. There is no reason for supposing that such dwarfs are the result of reversion. Just as one of a litter of pups may prove a dwarf, one of five or six foals, full brothers and sisters, may prove a dwarf. ”

“ Don't suspect this to be a contrivance of the Fairy's to try you, for I am an inveterate enemy both to her and the Yellow Dwarf, therefore, if you will have confidence in me, I will lend you my assistanco to procuro the release not only of yourself, but of All-Fair also."
She then cut down some sea-rushes, and blowing upon them, said, "I order you not to stir off from this beach till the Desert Fairy comes and takes you away. Whereupon a skin grew soon over the rashes, and they became an inanimate likeness of the King of the Golden Mines. ”

“ The dwarf rode on and on, until he came to a bridle-path, and following this, it led him up through winding lanes, bordered with golden furze that filled the air with fragrance, and brought him to the summit of the green hills that girdled and looked down on the Mystic Lake. Here the horse stopped of his own accord, and the dwarf’s heart beat quickly as his eye rested on the lake, that, clipped round by the ring of hills, seemed in the breezeless and sunlit air––
After gazing at it for a long time, he dismounted, and lay at his ease in the pleasant grass. ”

“ According to popular superstition, the dwarfs envied man’s taller stature and often tried to improve their race by winning human wives or by stealing unbaptized children, and substituting their own offspring for the human mother to nurse. These dwarf babies were known as changelings, and were recognizable by their puny and wizened forms. ”

“ They ran forward, and saw with horror that the eagle had pounced on their old friend the dwarf, and was about to carry him off. The tender-hearted children seized hold of the little man, and struggled so long with the bird that at last he let go his prey. When the dwarf had recovered from the first shock he screamed in his screeching voice: “Couldn’t you have treated me more carefully? You have torn my thin little coat all to shreds, useless, awkward hussies that you are!” Then he took a bag of precious stones and vanished under the rocks into his cave. ”

“ And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
p. 25With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies’ enemy;
Then ’mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers pass’d away ”

“ As they came riding along beside a wood, a dwarf, who was puffed up like a toad, had tied the horses' tails together, and walked beside them, beating them remorselessly with a four-knotted scourge until they bled, thinking thereby to be doing something wonderful. ”

“ And what a wonderful way the dwarfs had of finding things out without books. George of the Moor was easily traced. King Loc is very undwarflike or, let us say, very human when he learns where George is. But would the laugh of these little creatures even in unison be a "jovial great guffaw"? Surely it is only jolly giants who make great guffaws. Perhaps you can describe the dwarf laughter in a better way. What do you think the writer means by making Nur live in a deep well? ”

“ So they set off at once, flying with lightning speed through the air, over the seas and over the forests. In an hour or two they halted on the summit of a high mountain, and the horse said:
"These mountains are the kingdom of the dwarf magician, who carried off your betrothed, and they are both now in the garden; challenge him to fight."
Prince Dobrotek sounded a challenge three times, and the dwarf, as we have seen, flew up into the air, so as to swoop down upon his antagonist, unperceived of him. ”

“ Doubtless some bump extraordinary, some wonderful dilation of the organ of self-esteem in the skull of the true dwarf, or amativeness or combativeness in that of the false one, might have aided thee to discover the brutified soul confined in the brutified body. But, as it was, they were both brutes to Brunilda, and, as she had no wish to charm the Yellow Dwarf, she wept her disappointment incessantly. Nor was Ludolph less busy than the princess in employing threats and prayers by turns to mollify the Dwarf, though one was to as little purpose as the other, in the presence of the princess. ”

“ Big spruces, knobby with balls of gum, dwindled away into little ugly dwarf spruces, hostile, as dwarfs are said to be always, to human comfort. They grew man-high, and hedged themselves together into a dense thicket. ”

“ What it was the sisters could not see, but they [80] heard loud cries for help. Snow-white and Rose-red ran to the spot from which the cries came. And then they saw the poor dwarf in great trouble.
The eagle had him in his strong claws and was carrying him away. The children caught hold of the dwarf’s coat and held on with all their might. The big bird beat them with his great wings. He pecked at them with his strong bill, but they hung on to the dwarf’s coat. At last the eagle let the dwarf go and flew away.
At first the dwarf could not speak, but stood trembling with fright. ”

“ I think they all ought to be told as soon as possible. Ever so much trouble has been made by secrets. The one I have is this: That dwarf, who came here and then went and hired old Laub to work in his mine——"
"Was that a dwarf? " asked Loris, much excited.
"Yes, indeed," said the Ninkum, "a regular one. Didn't you notice how short he was? Well, he told me all about his coming here. The dwarfs in the Ragged Mine found a deep hole, with lots of gold at the bottom of it, but it steamed and smoked and was too hot for dwarfs. ”

“ Long ago (the story tells us) , when men were perhaps happier and certainly less sophisticated and cynical than they are now, and believed in fairies, gnomes, and magic, there lived a dwarf named Laurin or Laurenz reigning over the other dwarfs, who inhabited a country in the centre of the Schlern. By some means or other this dwarf managed to see and fall in love with the beautiful, golden-haired sister of a retainer of Dietrich of Bern, in Switzerland. After having seized her he bore her to his palace of crystal in the interior of the mountains, and there kept her prisoner. ”

“ Afterwards the prizes were presented by Lady Peirse, and my two male dwarfs gave an exhibition of trick wrestling, which was greatly appreciated.
This particular dwarf of mine was quite a smart little fellow, and once, during a voyage to South Africa, he got the better of my giant in a rather ingenious fashion. He bet the big man a sovereign that he could reach further than he (the giant) could, each to stand bolt upright with his back to the wall, and to use an arm and hand only, and not to bend or sway any part of the body out of the perpendicular. ”

“ Suddenly a sound seemed to strike her ear, the sound of a man’s footsteps walking over grass, and she perceived that the figure of the dwarf, crouched upon the bough, became tense and alert, and that his fingers tightened upon the bow-string until the blood was driven from their yellow tips. ”

“ THE DWARF, THE WITCH, AND THE MAGIC SLIPPERS. ONCE upon a time lived a poor, little, crooked dwarf named "Ha'penny." When he was born he was so small that his nurse exclaimed, "Why, he is no bigger than a ha'penny!" and thus the nickname settled upon him, as ugly nicknames often do upon very worthy people. His father was not very kind to the unfortunate child, who, finding himself pitied and avoided by children of his own age, soon learned to go off to the woods alone, and to spend the days with birds and animals, over whom he had extraordinary power. ”