Part 8 (2/2)
Ah! lost forever, Woe! woe! woe!”
The bird sang in such a sorrowful voice, and fluttered its golden wings so mournfully, that Hulda wept.
”Alas! alas!” she said, ”I have done very wrong. I have lost the wand forever! Oh, what shall I do, dear little bird? Do tell me.”
But the bird did not sing again, and it was now time to go to bed. The old nurse came out to fetch Hulda. She had been looking all over the castle for her, and been wondering where she could have hidden herself.
In Norway, at midsummer, the nights are so short that the sun only dips under the hills time enough to let one or two stars peep out before he appears again. The people, therefore, go to bed in the broad sunlight.
”Child,” said the old nurse, ”look how late you are--it is nearly midnight. Come, it is full time for bed. This is Midsummer day.”
”Midsummer day!” repeated Hulda. ”Ah, how sorry I am! Then this is a day when I might have seen the fairy. How very, very foolish I have been!”
Hulda laid her beautiful bracelet upon a table in her room, where she could see it, and kissed the little bird before she got into bed. She had been asleep a long time when a little sobbing voice suddenly awoke her, and she sat up to listen. The house was perfectly still; her cat was curled up at the door, fast asleep; her bird's head was under its wing; a long sunbeam was slanting down through an opening in the green window-curtain, and the motes danced merrily in it.
”What could that noise have been?” said little Hulda, lying down again.
She had no sooner laid her head on the pillow than she heard it again; and, turning round quickly to look at the bracelet, she saw the little bird fluttering its wings, and close to it, with her hands covering her face, the beautiful, long lost fairy.
”Oh, fairy, fairy! what have I done!” said Hulda. ”You will never see your wand again. The gnome has got it, and he has carried it down under the ground, where he will hide it from us forever.”
The fairy could not look up, nor answer. She remained weeping, with her hands before her face, till the little golden bird began to chirp.
”Sing to us again, I pray you, beautiful bird!” said Hulda; ”for you are not friendly to the gnome. I am sure you are sorry for the poor fairy.”
”Child,” said the fairy, ”be cautious what you say--that gnome is my enemy; he disguised himself as a pedlar the better to deceive you, and now he has got my wand he can discover where I am; he will be constantly pursuing me, and I shall have no peace; if once I fall into his hands, I shall be his slave forever. The bird is not his friend, for the race of gnomes have no friends. Speak to it again, and see if it will sing to you, for you are its mistress.”
”Sing to me, sweet bird,” said Hulda, in a caressing tone, and the little bird quivered its wings and bowed its head several times; then it opened its beak and sang:
”Where's the ring?
Oh the ring, my master stole the ring, And he holds it while I sing, In the middle of the world.
Where's the ring?
Where the long green Lizard curled All its length, and made a spring Fifty leagues along.
There he stands, With his brown hands,
And sings to the Lizard a wonderful song.
And he gives the white stone to that Lizard fell, For he fears it--and loves it pa.s.sing well.”
”What!” said Hulda, ”did the pedlar steal my mother's ring--that old opal ring which I told him I could not let him have?”
”Child,” replied the fairy, ”be not sorry for his treachery; this theft I look to for my last hope for recovering the wand.”
”How so?” asked Hulda.
”It is a common thing among mortals,” replied the fairy, ”to say the thing which is not true, and do the thing which is not honest; but among the other races of beings who inhabit this world the penalty of mocking and imitating the vices of you, the superior race, is, that if ever one of us can be convicted of it, that one, be it gnome, sprite, or fairy, is never permitted to appear in the likeness of humanity again, nor to walk about on the face of the land which is your inheritance. Now the gnomes hate one another, and if it should be discovered by the brethren of this my enemy that he stole the opal ring, they will not fail to betray him. There is, therefore, no doubt, little Hulda, that he carries both the ring and the wand about with him wherever he goes, and if in all your walks and during your whole life you should see him again, and go boldly up to him and demand the stolen stone, he will be compelled instantly to burrow his way down again into the earth, and leave behind him all his ill-gotten gains.”
”There is, then, still some hope,” said Hulda, in a happier voice; ”but where, dear fairy, have you hidden yourself so long?”
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