Chapter Two Annabelle The Little Fairy And The Shoemaker Of The Elves

Annabelle, the little fairy, had heard the first story: There was a shoemaker who, by no fault of his own, had become so poor that he had nothing left but leather for one pair of shoes. So in the evening, he cut out the shoes which he wished to begin to make the next morning, and as he had a good conscience, he lay down quietly in his bed, commended himself to God, and fell asleep. In the morning, after he had said his prayers and was just going to sit down to work, the two shoes stood quite finished on his table. He was astounded and did not know what to say to it. He took the shoes in his hands to observe them closer, and they were so neatly made that there was not one bad stitch in them, just as if they were intended as a masterpiece. Soon after, a buyer came in, and as the shoes pleased him so well, he paid more for them than was customary, and with the money, the shoemaker was able to purchase leather for two pairs of shoes. He cut them out at night, and next morning was about to set to work with fresh courage; but he had no need to do so, for when he got up, they were already made, and buyers also were not wanting, who gave him money enough to buy leather for four pairs of shoes. The following morning, too, he found the four pairs made, and so it went on constantly. What he cut out in the evening was finished by the morning, so that he soon had his honest independence again, and at last became a wealthy man.

Now it befell that one evening not long before Christmas, when the man had been cutting out, he said to his wife, before going to bed, “What do you think if we were to stay up tonight to see who it is that lends us this helping hand?” The woman liked the idea and lighted a candle, and then they hid themselves in a corner of the room behind some clothes which were hanging up there, and watched. When it was midnight, two pretty little naked men came, sat down by the shoemaker’s table, took all the work which was cut out before them, and began to stitch, sew, and hammer so skillfully and so quickly with their little fingers that the shoemaker could not turn away his eyes for astonishment. They did not stop until all was done and stood finished on the table, and then they ran quickly away.

The woman said, “The little men have made us rich, and we really must show that we are grateful for it. They run about so and have nothing on, and must be cold. I’ll tell thee what I’ll do: I will make them little shirts, and coats, and vests, and trousers, and knit both of them a pair of stockings, and do thou, too, make them two little pairs of shoes.” The man said, “I shall be very glad to do it.” One night, when everything was ready, they laid their presents all together on the table instead of the cut-out work, and then concealed themselves to see how the little men would behave. At midnight, they came bounding in, and wanted to get to work at once, but as they did not find any leather cut out, but only the pretty little articles of clothing, they were at first astonished, and then they showed intense delight. They dressed themselves with the greatest rapidity, putting the pretty clothes on and singing, “Now we are boys so fine to see, Why should we longer cobblers be?” Then they danced and skipped and leapt over chairs and benches. At last they danced out of doors. From that time forth, they came no more, but as long as the shoemaker lived, all went well with him, and all his undertakings prospered.

Second Story: There was once a poor servant-girl, who was industrious and clean, and swept the house every day, and emptied her sweepings on the great heap in front of the door. One morning when she was just going back to her work, she found a letter on this heap, and as she could not read, she put her broom in the corner and took the letter to her master and mistress, and behold it was an invitation from the elves, who asked the girl to hold a child for them at its christening. The girl did not know what to do, but at length, after much persuasion, and as they told her that it was not right to refuse an invitation of this kind, she consented. Then three elves came and conducted her to a hollow mountain, where the little folks lived. Everything there was small, but more elegant and beautiful than can be described. The baby’s mother lay in a bed of black ebony ornamented with pearls, the coverlets were embroidered with gold, the cradle was of ivory, the bath of gold. The girl stood as godmother and then wanted to go home again, but the little elves urgently entreated her to stay three days with them. So she stayed and passed the time in pleasure and gaiety, and the little folks did all they could to make her happy. At last, she set out on her way home. Then first they filled her pockets quite full of money, and after that they led her out of the mountain again. When she got home, she wanted to begin her work and took the broom, which was still standing in the corner, in her hand and began to sweep. Then some strangers came out of the house, who asked her who she was, and what business she had there? And she had not, as she thought, been three days with the little men in the mountains, but seven years, and in the meantime, her former masters had died.

Third Story: A certain mother’s child had been taken away out of its cradle by the elves, and a changeling with a large head and staring eyes, which would do nothing but eat and drink, laid in its place. In her trouble, she went to her neighbour and asked her advice. The neighbour said that she was to carry the changeling into the kitchen, set it down on the hearth, light a fire, and boil some water in two egg-shells, which would make the changeling laugh, and if he laughed, all would be over with him. The woman did everything that her neighbour bade her. When she put the egg-shells with water on the fire, the imp said, “I am as old now as the Wester forest, but never yet have I seen anyone boil anything in an egg-shell!” And he began to laugh at it. Whilst he was laughing, suddenly came a host of little elves, who brought the right child, set it down on the hearth, and took the changeling away with them.

The happy day at length arrived on which Count Hermann von Rosenberg was married to his beloved Catherine, a princess of the house of Gonzaga. The event was celebrated by a magnificent banquet and festival, and it was late before the Count and Countess could leave their guests. The young Countess was already asleep, and Hermann was sinking into a slumber when he was aroused by hearing the sounds of soft and gentle music, and the door of his apartment flying open, a joyous bridal procession entered the room. The figures engaged in this extraordinary scene were not more than two or three spans high. The bride and bridegroom were in the center of the procession, and the musicians preceded it. Hermann rose up in bed and demanded what brought them there and why they had aroused him, whereupon one of the company stepped up to him and said, “We are attendant spirits of that peaceful class who dwell in the earth. We have dwelt for many years beneath this thy birthplace, and have ever watched over thy dwelling to preserve it from misfortune. Already have we taken good care of the ashes of your forefathers that they should not fall into the power of hostile and evil spirits, and as faithful servants, we watch over the welfare of your house. Since thou hast this day been married for the continuance of thy name and ancient race, we have represented to you this bridal ceremony, in hopes that you will grant us full permission to keep and celebrate this joyous festival, in return for which, we promise to serve you and your house with the greatest readiness.” “Very well,” said Hermann, laughing; “make yourselves as merry in my castle as you please.” They thanked him and took their departure. Hermann could not, however, banish from his mind this remarkable scene, and it was daybreak before he fell asleep. In the morning, his thoughts were still occupied with it, yet he never mentioned one word of the occurrence to his wife.

In the course of time, the Countess presented him with a daughter. Scarcely had Hermann received intelligence of this event before a very diminutive old crone entered the apartment and informed him that the elfin bride, whom he had seen in the miniature procession on the night of his nuptials, had given birth to a daughter. Hermann was very friendly to the visitor, wished all happiness to the mother and child, and the old woman took her departure. The Count did not, however, mention this visit to his wife. A year afterward, on the approach of her second confinement, the Countess saw the elves on the occasion of her husband receiving another of their unexpected visits. The little people entered the chamber in a long procession in black dresses, carrying lights in their hands, and the little women were clothed in white. One of these stood before the Count holding up her apron, while an old man thus addressed her “No more, dear Hermann, can we find a resting-place in your castle. We must wander abroad. We are come to take our departure from you. Wherefore will you leave my castle?” inquired Hermann. “Have I offended you? No, thou hast not; but we must go, for she whom you saw as a bride on your wedding-night lost, last evening, her life in giving birth to an heir, who likewise perished. As a proof that we are thankful for the kindness you have always shown us, take a trifling proof of our power. When the old man had thus spoken, he placed a little ladder against the bed, which the old woman who had stood by ascended. Then she opened her apron, held it before Hermann, and said Grasp and take. He hesitated. She repeated what she had said. At last he did what she told him, took out of her apron what he supposed to be a handful of sand, and laid it in a basin which stood upon a table by his bedside. The little woman desired him to take another handful, and he did once more as she bade him. Thereupon the woman descended the ladder; and the procession, weeping and lamenting, departed from the chamber. When day broke, Hermann saw that the supposed sand which he had taken from the apron of the little woman was nothing less than pure and beautiful grains of gold. But what happened? On that very day he lost his Countess in childbirth, and his newborn son. Hermann mourned her loss so bitterly that he was very soon laid beside her in the grave. With him perished the house of Rosenberg.

As an honest woodman was sitting one evening, after his work was done, talking with his wife, he said, “I hope the children will not run into that grove by the side of the river; it looks more gloomy than ever; the old oak tree is sadly blasted and torn; and some odd folks, I am sure, are lurking about there, but who they are nobody knows.” The woodman, however, could not say that they brought ill luck, whatever they were; for everyone said that the village had thrived more than ever of late, that the fields looked gayer and greener, that even the sky was of a deeper blue, and that the moon and stars shed a brighter light. So, not knowing what to think, the good people very wisely let the newcomers alone; and in truth, seldom said or thought anything at all about them. That very evening, the woodman’s daughter Rose ken, and her playfellow Martin, ran out to have a game of hide-and-seek in the valley. “Where can he be hidden?” said she; “he must have gone towards the grove; perhaps he is behind the old oak tree”: and down she ran to look. Just then she spied a little dog that jumped and frisked round her, and wagged his tail, and led her on towards the grove. Then he ran into it, and she soon jumped up the bank by the side of the old oak to look for him; but was overjoyed to see a beautiful meadow, where flowers and shrubs of every kind grew upon turf of the softest green; gay butterflies flew about; the birds sang sweetly; and what was strangest, the prettiest little children sported about like fairies on all sides; some twining the flowers, and others dancing in rings upon the smooth turf beneath the trees. In the midst of the grove, instead of the hovels of which Rose ken had heard, she could see a palace, that dazzled her eyes with its brightness. For a while, she gazed on the fairy scene, till at last one of the little dancers ran up to her, and said, “And so, pretty Rose ken, you are come at last to see us? We have often seen you play about, and wished to have you with us.” Then she plucked some of the fruit that grew near, and Rose ken at the first taste forgot her home, and wished only to see and know more of her fairy friends. So she jumped down from the bank and joined the merry dance.

Then they led her about with them and showed her all their sports.

One moment they danced by moonlight on the primrose banks, another they skipped from bough to bough among the trees that hung over the cooling streams, for they moved as lightly and easily through the air as on the ground: and Roseken went with them everywhere, for they bore her in their arms wherever they wished to go. Sometimes they would throw seeds on the turf, and little trees would spring up; and then they would set their feet upon the branches and rise as the trees grew under them, till they danced upon the boughs in the air, wherever the breezes carried them, singing merry songs. At other times, they would go and visit the palace of their queen: and there, the richest food was spread before them, and the softest music was heard; and all around grew flowers, which were always changing their hues, from scarlet to purple, and yellow, and emerald. Sometimes they went to look at the heaps of treasure which were piled up in the royal stores; for little dwarfs were always employed in searching the earth for gold. Small as this fairy land looked from without, it seemed within to have no end; a mist hung around it to shield it from the eyes of men; and some of the little elves sat perched upon the outermost trees, to keep watch lest the step of man should break in and spoil the charm. "And who are you?" said Roseken one day. "We are what are called elves in your world," said one whose name was Gossamer, and who had become her dearest friend: "we are told you talk a great deal about us. Some of our tribes like to work you mischief, but we who live here seek only to be happy; we meddle little with mankind, and when we do come among them it is to do them good." "And where is your queen?" said Roseken. "Hush! hush! you cannot see or know her: you must leave us before she comes back, which will be now very soon, for mortal step cannot come where she is. But you will know that she is here when you see the meadows gayer, the rivers more sparkling, and the sun brighter." Soon afterward, Gossamer told Roseken the time had come to bid her farewell; and she gave her a ring in token of their friendship, and led her to the edge of the grove. "Think of me," said she; "but beware how you tell what you have seen, or try to visit any of us again: for if you do, we shall quit this grove and come back no more." Turning back, Roseken saw nothing but the old oak and the gloomy grove she had known before. "How frightened my father and mother will be!" thought she, as she looked at the sun, which had risen some time. "They will wonder where I have been all night, and yet I must not tell them what I have seen." Then she hastened homewards, wondering, however, as she went, to see that the leaves, which were yesterday so fresh and green, were now falling dry and yellow around her. The cottage, too, seemed changed; and when she went in, there sat her father, looking some years older than when she saw him last, and her mother, whom she hardly knew, was by his side. Close by was a young man. "Father," said Roseken, "who is this?" "Who are you that call me father?" said he; "are you—no, you cannot be—our long-lost Roseken?" But they soon saw that it was their Roseken; and the young man, who was her old friend and playfellow Martin, said, "No wonder you had forgotten me in seven years; do not you remember how we parted, seven years ago, while playing in the field? We thought you were quite lost; but I am glad to see that someone has taken care of you and brought you home at last." Roseken said nothing, for she could not tell all; but she wondered at the strange tale and felt gloomy at the change from fairy land to her father’s cottage. Little by little she came to herself, thought of her story as a mere dream, and soon became Martin’s bride. Everything seemed to thrive around them; and Roseken thought of her friends, and so called her first little girl Elfie. The little thing was loved by everyone. It was pretty and very good-tempered. Roseken thought that it was very like a little elf; and all, without knowing why, called it the fairy-child. One day, while Roseken was dressing her little Elfie, she found a piece of gold hanging round her neck by a silken thread; and knew it to be of the same sort as she had seen in the hands of the fairy dwarfs. Elfie seemed sorry at its being seen and said that she had found it in the garden. But Roseken watched her, and soon found that she went every afternoon to sit by herself in a shady place behind the house. So one day she hid herself to see what the child did there, and to her great wonder Gossamer was sitting by her side. "Dear Elfie," she was saying, "your mother and I used to sit thus when she was young and lived among us. Oh, if you could but come and do so too! But since our queen came to us it cannot be; yet I will come and see you, and talk to you whilst you are a child; when you grow up we must part for ever." Then she plucked one of the roses that grew around them, and breathed gently upon it, and said, "Take this for my sake! it will now keep fresh for a whole year." Then Roseken loved her little Elfie more than ever; and when she found that she spent some hours of almost every day with the elf, she used to hide herself and watch them without being seen; till one day, when Gossamer was bearing her little friend through the air from tree to tree, her mother was so frightened lest her child should fall that she could not help screaming out; and Gossamer set her gently on the ground and seemed angry and flew away. But still she used sometimes to come and play with her little friend; and would soon, perhaps, have done so the same as before, had not Roseken one day told her husband the whole story: for she could not bear to hear him always wondering and laughing at their little child’s odd ways and saying he was sure there was something in the grove that brought them no good. So, to show him that all she said was true, she took him to see Elfie and the fairy; but no sooner did Gossamer know that he was there (which she did in an instant), than she changed herself into a raven and flew off into the grove. Roseken burst into tears, and so did Elfie, for she knew she should see her dear friend no more; but Martin was restless and bent upon following up his search after the fairies, so when night came he stole away toward the grove. When he came to it nothing was to be seen but the old oak and the gloomy grove and the hovels; and the thunder rolled, and the wind whistled. It seemed that all about him was angry, so he turned homewards, frightened at what he had done. In the morning, all the neighbors flocked around, asking one another what the noise and bustle of the last night could mean; and when they looked about them, their trees seemed blighted and the meadows parched, the streams were dried up, and everything seemed troubled and sorrowful. But yet they all thought that, somehow or other, the grove had not near so forbidding a look as it used to have. Strange stories were told: how one had heard flutterings in the air, another had seen the grove as it were alive with little beings, that flew away from it. Each neighbor told his tale, and all wondered what could have happened. But Roseken and her husband knew what was the matter and bewailed their folly; for they foresaw that their kind neighbors, to whom they owed all their luck, were gone forever. It was among the bystanders none told a wilder story than the ferryman who plied across the river at the foot of the grove. He told how at midnight his boat was carried away and how hundreds of little beings seemed to load it with treasures how a strange piece of gold was left for him in the boat as his fare how the air seemed full of fairy forms fluttering around and how at last a great train passed over that seemed to be guarding their leader to the meadows on the other side and how he heard soft music floating around and how sweet voices sang as they hovered overhead.