Roumanian Fairy Tales

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One day, when the youth was sitting comfortably before his hut,
playing on the flute, while the ox grazed at some distance, up came an
enormous bull, so fat that his hide seemed ready to burst.

"Why did you come here, youngster, with your Tellerchen, to drink my
water and feed on my grass?" he asked.

"I didn't know that this was your property," answered the youth,
"Tellerchen brought me here."

"Then tell him he must come to the Gold Bridge to-morrow and fight
with me." After saying this, he went away.

When the ox came home at night he found the youth more sorrowful than
ever before. "What ails you, master, that you stand there as if you
were stupefied?" asked the ox.

"What ails me?" replied the youth. "Why, I'm in a fine fix!" And he
repeated all that the bull had said.

"Never mind, master, don't worry about it, leave that to me."

Early the next morning the ox left the lad in the hut and set off to
the Gold Bridge to fight with the bull; he fought till he had pushed
him under the bridge, and then came back home safe and sound.

Two days after another bull came, somewhat smaller than the first one.
After saying the same things the other had said, he summoned
Tellerchen to fight at the Silver Bridge. The ox again found his
master weeping, soothed him as he had done before, and went to fight
the second bull and hurl him under the bridge.

After several days a third bull appeared, a feeble, unsightly, ugly,
dirty animal, and said to the boy: "Who gave you leave to come here
with your Tellerchen to drink my water and spoil the grass in my
meadows?"

"What business is it of yours?" replied the youth pertly.

"If it isn't my business, whose affair should it be?" replied the
bull. "Whichever of you two will dare to fight with me may come
to-morrow to the Copper Bridge."

"Don't worry," replied the youth carelessly, "we will come."

When Tellerchen returned from the pasture in the evening, his master,
with great amusement, told him every thing that had happened.

"Your mirth is out of place," replied the ox, "for my time has now
come. The bull, sick and emaciated as he was, will overpower me. Watch
our battle to-morrow, for I will not let you fight with him; you are
young and delicate, and still have a great deal to see in the world.
When you perceive that he is conquering me and about to push me under
the bridge, rush forward and seize my left horn, but don't open it
till you have reached home."

When the youth heard this, he began to weep so that he could not be
quieted, and grieved so much all night long that he had no sleep.

Early the next morning he went with Tellerchen to the Copper Bridge,
where the puny-looking bull awaited them. They began the struggle, and
fought and fought until toward the afternoon. Sometimes the ox gored
the bull, at others the bull the ox, and the victory still remained
undecided. But when the afternoon was nearly over the ox's strength
failed, and, while the bull was carrying him off and in the very act
of hurling him under the bridge, the boy rushed up and wrenched off
his left horn.

He wept,--Heaven knows how bitterly the poor lad wept by the bridge.
But seeing that his Tellerchen did not come out again from under the
bridge and it was growing dark, he set off with his horn, and a heart
bleeding with grief. He spent the night on a hill. The next day hunger
vexed him, and thinking he should find something to eat in the horn
Tellerchen had left him, he opened it.

What, I beg to ask you, do you suppose happened then! Whence came the
countless multitude of all sorts of cattle? How could he drive them
home? and to get them back into the horn again was impossible. He
owned this to himself and began to weep bitterly. While thus
lamenting, lo and behold! a dragon came up to him and said:--

"What will you give me, boy, if I put all these beasts back into the
horn for you?"

"Half of them," replied the lad.

"I've no fancy for _that_," said the dragon, "I want something else."

"Tell me what it is, and I'll see."

"When you love life best I am to be allowed to come and take the
dearest thing you have, to devour it."

The lad, without exactly knowing what he was doing, agreed.

The dragon rapped three times with its tail and put all the cattle
back in the horn, which the boy then took and went to his father, whom
he found alone. No one knew what had become of the old woman and her
daughter, they had vanished from the house.

When the peasant saw his son grown into a youth he almost lost his
senses with joy, but managed to calm himself. His son opened the
horn, and instantly the fields and surrounding country were so filled
with cattle that every body was bewildered.

"Do all these flocks and herds belong to you?" asked the old man.

"All, father. What shall we do with this multitude of beasts."

"Relieve the sorrows of the widows and the poor," he replied.

The youth followed his father's advice. There was no day the Lord
bestowed on which he did not render some service to those who needed
aid. So it happened that not a single pauper was left in the
neighborhood. News of the wealth and benevolence of the old man's son
reached the imperial court, and as the emperor had a very clever and
beautiful daughter, he sent to ask the youth to become her suitor.

When the young man heard that the emperor wanted him for a son-in-law
he was greatly astonished. But, on being summoned to the court, he
went there and behaved with so much good sense and dignity that the
sovereign was not at all sorry he had cast his eye upon him. The
princess liked him because he was a handsome, proud, spirited
Roumanian youth. Then, after having agreed among themselves, a wedding
was celebrated whose fame spread through the whole country. The young
man's father was there too.

After the dances and amusements of the marriage were over and every
body had gone home, the old man, according to ancient custom, placed
in the room where the emperor's son-in-law and his bride were to
sleep a roll of snow-white bread. Then he, too, went to rest.

What happened during the night? The emperor's son-in-law suddenly saw
the dragon, which, with one jaw on the upper cornice of the door and
the other on the threshold beneath, told the young fellow it had come
to settle their account and he must now give up to be devoured the
bride sleeping beside him, whom he loved like the apple of his eye.

The old man's son, who had long since forgotten the settlement, did
not know what to do. He dared not rush upon the dragon and kill it,
because he knew that they had made this bargain; his father had often
told him that, when a man has given his word, he has also pledged his
soul. Yet his heart would not let him yield up his beloved wife for
the dragon to devour. While he was torturing himself in trying to
think what he could do to neither break his promise nor give up his
bride, the bread on the table began to jump about and said:

"Hi, dragon, I've been sowed, grew up, was mowed down and fastened
into a bundle, yet I bore it, do you now bear your trouble, too, and
go into the depths of the sea."

The dragon stood waiting. The bread went on:

"Then I was carried to the barn, horses trampled on me, I was winnowed
and taken to the mill. Bear your troubles as I've borne mine, and go,
that we may hear your name no more."

The dragon still waited, and its tongue darted about in its mouth like
lightning. The emperor's son-in-law and his bride remained perfectly
quiet. The bread spoke again:

"Then I was ground, taken home, sifted, kneaded with water, put into
the oven, and baked till my eyes almost started out of my head, yet I
bore it. Do you bear it too, you accursed dragon, and may you burst."

The noise that echoed through the air, as the dragon burst, was so
loud that every body in the palace awoke. Men came running to the
spot, what did they see? A monster of a dragon, burst and split open.
It was so huge that all shrank away in terror.

Afterward they took the carcass, carried it out of the palace, and
gave it to the ravens. Then the emperor's son-in-law related the whole
affair. When the people in the palace heard it, they all thanked God
for having worked such a miracle and permitted the emperor's children
to escape safe and sound. Then they lived in peace and happiness and
did good every where, and if they have not died, they may be alive
now.

Into the saddle then I sprung,
This tale to tell to old and young.

The Fairy Aurora.

Once upon a time something happened. If it hadn't happened, it
wouldn't be told.

There was once a great and mighty emperor, whose kingdom was so large
that no one knew where it began and where it ended. Some believed it
was boundless, others said that they dimly remembered having heard
from very old people that the emperor had formerly engaged in war with
his neighbors, some of whom had proved greater and more powerful,
others smaller and weaker than he. One piece of news about this
emperor went all through the wide world--that he always laughed with
his right eye and wept with the left. People vainly asked the reason
that the emperor's eyes could not agree, and even differed so
entirely. When great heroes went to the emperor to question him, he
smiled evasively and made no reply. So the enmity between the
monarch's eyes remained a profound mystery, whose cause nobody knew
except the emperor himself. Then the emperor's sons grew up. Ah, what
princes they were! Three princes in one country, like three morning
stars in the sky! Florea, the oldest, was a fathom tall, with
shoulders more than four span broad. Costan was very different, short,
strongly built, with a muscular arm and a stout fist. The third and
youngest prince was named Petru--a tall, slender fellow, more like a
girl than a boy. Petru did not talk much, he laughed and sang, sang
and laughed, from morning till night. Only he was often seen in a
graver mood, when he pushed back the curling locks from his forehead
and looked like one of the old wiseacres who belonged to the emperor's
council.

"Come, Florea, you are grown up, go to our father and ask him why one
of his eyes always weeps and the other always laughs," said Petru, one
fine morning to his brother Florea. But Florea would not go; he knew
by experience that the emperor was always vexed if any one asked him
that question.

Petru fared just the same when he went to his brother Costan.

"Very well, if nobody else dares, I'll venture it!" he said at last.
No sooner said than done, Petru instantly went and asked.

"May your mother blind you! What's that to you?" replied the emperor
wrathfully, giving him one cuff on the right ear and another on the
left. Petru went sadly away, and told his brothers how his father had
served him. Yet, after the young prince had asked what was the matter
with the eyes, it seemed as though the left one wept less and the
right one laughed more.

Petru plucked up his courage and went to the emperor again. A box on
the ear is a box on the ear, and two of them are two! It was no sooner
thought than done. He fared just the same the second time. But the
left now only wept occasionally, and the right one seemed ten years
younger.

"If that's the way things stand," thought Petru, "I know what I have
to do. I'll keep going to him, keep repeating the question, and keep
receiving the cuffs on the ear until both eyes laugh."

No sooner said than done. Petru never made the same remark twice.

"My son Petru," began the emperor, this time in a pleasant tone and
laughing with both eyes, "I see that you can't drive this anxiety out
of your head, so I'll tell you what is the matter with my eyes. Know
that this eye laughs when I see that I have three such sons as you,
but the other weeps because I fear that you will not be able to reign
in peace and protect the country against bad neighbors. But if you
bring me water from the fountain of the Fairy Aurora that I may bathe
my eyes with it, both will laugh, because I shall then know that I
have brave sons on whom I can rely."

Such were the emperor's words. Petru took his hat from the bench by
the stove, and went to tell his brothers what he had heard. The
princes consulted together and soon settled the matter, as is proper
among own brothers. Florea, being the oldest, went to the stables,
chose the best and handsomest horse, saddled it, and bade farewell to
home.

"I will go," he said to his brothers; "and if, at the end of a year, a
month, a week, and a day, I have not returned with the water, you can
follow me, Costan." With these words he departed.

For three days and three nights Florea did not stop; his horse flew
like a ghost over the mountains and valleys till it reached the
frontiers of the empire. But all around the emperor's dominions ran a
deep gulf, and across this abyss there was only a single bridge. Here
Florea halted to look back and bid farewell to his native land.

May the Lord preserve even a Pagan from what Florea now beheld when he
wanted to go on--a dragon! But a dragon with three heads and the most
horrible faces, with one jaw in the sky and another on the earth.
Florea did not wait for the dragon to bathe him in flames, but set
spurs to his horse and vanished as if he had never been in existence.
The dragon sighed once and disappeared, without leaving a trace
behind.

A week passed; Florea did not return; a fortnight slipped by, but
nothing was heard of him. A month elapsed; Costan began to search
among the horses to choose one. When morning dawned after a year, a
month, a week, and a day, Costan mounted his horse, took leave of his
youngest brother, and saying to him, "Come, if I am lost too," rode
off as Florea had done.

The dragon at the bridge was now still more terrible, his heads were
more frightful--and the hero fled still faster. Nothing more was heard
of the two brothers; Petru remained alone.

"I am going to follow my brothers," he said one day to his father.

"Then may God go with you," replied the emperor. "He alone knows
whether you will have better luck than your brothers."

So the monarch's youngest son also bade him farewell and set off for
the frontiers of the empire. On the bridge stood a dragon still larger
and more horrible, with jaws even more yawning and frightful. The
creature now had seven heads instead of three.

Petru stopped when he beheld this monster. "Get out of the way!" he
shouted. The dragon did not stir. Petru called a second and a third
time, then rushed forward with uplifted sword. Instantly the sky
darkened so that he saw nothing but fire--fire on the right, fire on
the left, fire before him, fire behind him. The dragon was spitting
fire from every one of its seven heads. The horse began to neigh and
rear, so that our hero could not strike with his sword.

"Hold! This won't do!" said Petru, dismounting and seizing the horse's
bridle with his left hand, while he held his sword in the right.

That plan would not do either. The hero saw nothing but fire and
smoke.

"I'll go home--to get a better horse," said Petru, and he mounted his
steed, and went away to come back again.

When he reached the place his nurse, old Birscha, was waiting for him
at the court-yard gate.

"Ah, my son Petru! I knew you would be obliged to come back again,
because you didn't set out right."

"How ought I to have gone?" asked Petru, half angrily, half sadly.

"You see, my dear Petru," the old nurse began, "you can't reach the
fountain of the Fairy Aurora unless you ride the horse which your
father the emperor rode in his youth; go, ask where and whose that
horse is, then mount it and depart."

Petru thanked her for her directions, and then went off to inquire
about the horse.

"May the light grow black to you!" said the emperor. "Who told you to
ask me that? It must surely have been that witch of a Birscha. Are you
crazy? Fifty years have passed since I was young, who knows where the
bones of the horse I rode then are rotting? It seems to me that
there's one strap of the bridle lying on the stable floor. It's all I
have left of the horse."

Petru went off in a rage and told his old nurse the whole story.

"Just wait," cried the old woman, laughing. "If that's the way things
are, very well. Go and bring me the piece of the bridle, I shall know
how to turn it to some account."

The floor was covered with saddles, bridles, and straps; Petru chose
the most tattered, rusted, and blackest, and carried it to the old
woman, that she might do with it what she had promised. The old nurse
took the bridle, smoked it with incense, muttered a short spell over
it, and then said to Petru. "Now take the bridle and strike the
pillars[4] of the house with it."

[Footnote 4: Roumanian peasant cottages usually have several pillars
in front, which support the projecting roof.]

Petru did as he was told. The old woman's charm worked well. Scarcely
had Petru struck the pillars when something happened--I don't know
how--that utterly amazed him. A horse stood before him, a horse whose
superior the world never saw. Its saddle was made of gold and jewels,
its bridle glittered so that one dared not look at it for fear of
being blinded. A beautiful horse, beautiful saddle, and beautiful
bridle for the handsome prince!

"Jump on the bay's back, my young hero," cried the old woman, making
the sign of the cross over horse and rider; then she repeated a short
charm and went into the palace.

After Petru had leaped on the horse he felt thrice as much strength in
his arm and thrice as much courage in his heart.

"Hold fast, master, for we have a long journey and must go swiftly,"
said the bay, and the hero soon saw that they galloped, galloped,
galloped, as never horse and hero had galloped before.

On the bridge now stood a dragon whose like had never been there, a
dragon with twelve heads, each one more terrible, more fiery than the
others. Ah, but the monster found its match. Petru did not quail, but
began to roll up his sleeves and spit upon his hands. "Out of the
way!" he shouted. The dragon began to spit fire. Petru wasted no more
words, but drew his sword and prepared to rush upon the bridge.

"Hold, calm yourself, master," said the bay, "do as I tell you; press
the spurs into my flanks, draw your sword, and be ready, for we must
now leap over the bridge and the dragon. When you see that we are
directly over the monster, cut off its head, wipe the blood from your
sword on your sleeve, and put it in the sheath, that you may be
prepared to fight when we touch the earth again."

Petru struck in the spurs, drew his sword, hacked off the head, wiped
the blood away, thrust the blade into its sheath, and was ready when
he again felt firm ground under the horse's hoofs. So they crossed the
bridge.

"Now we must go on," Petru began, after he had cast one more glance
back to his native land.

"Forward," replied the bay, "but you must now tell me, master, how we
are to hasten. Like the wind? Like thought? Like longing? Or like a
curse?"

Petru looked before him and saw nothing but sky and earth--a
wilderness which made his hair bristle with horror.

"We will change our pace and ride like each in turn,--not too fast
that we may not grow weary, and not too slow lest we should be late."

They rode on,--one day like the wind, one like thought, one like
longing, and one like a curse, until in the gray dawn of the morning
of the fourth day, they reached the end of the wilderness.

"Now stop and go on at a walk, that I may see what I have never
beheld," cried Petru, rubbing his eyes like a person waking from sleep
or one who beholds something that seems like an illusion. Before the
eyes of the young prince stretched a copper forest--trees, saplings,
shrubs, bushes, ferns, and flowers of the most beautiful varieties,
all made of copper. Petru stood staring, as a man gazes who beholds
something he has never seen or heard of. He rode into the wood. The
blossoms along the wayside began to praise themselves and tempt Petru
to gather them and make a garland:

"Take me, I am beautiful and give strength to him who breaks me," said
one.

"Oh, no, take me, for whoever wears me in his hat will be loved by the
greatest beauty in the world," said another. Then a third and a
fourth, each lovelier than its companions, stirred, and in sweet tones
tried to persuade Petru to gather it.

The bay sprang aside whenever it saw its master stoop toward a flower.

"Why don't you keep quiet?" cried Petru, somewhat sternly.

"Pick no blossoms, you will fare badly if you gather them," replied
the bay.

"Why should I fare badly?"

"A curse rests on these flowers--whoever gathers them must fight with
the Welwa[5] of the wood."

[Footnote 5: Welwa, an indescribable monster that exists in the
imagination of the Roumanian peasantry.]

"With what sort of a Welwa?"

"Now let me alone! But listen; look at the flowers and gather none of
them, keep quiet." Having said this the horse went on at a walk. Petru
knew by experience that he would do well to heed the bay's advice. So
he turned his thoughts away from the flowers. But it was all in vain!
If one is unlucky, he can't get rid of his ill-fortune even if he
tries with all his might. The flowers still offered themselves to him,
and his heart grew weaker and weaker.

"Come what may," said Petru after a while, "I shall at least see the
Welwa of this wood, that I may know what the monster is like and with
whom I have to deal. If I am fated to die by its hands, it will kill
me in some way, and if not I shall escape, though there should be
hundreds and thousands like it." Then he began to pull off the
flowers.

"You have done wrong!" said the bay anxiously. "But as the thing has
happened it can't be changed, so gird yourself and prepare to fight,
for here is the Welwa."

The bay had scarcely spoken and Petru had hardly twined his wreath,
when a light breeze blew from all quarters of the compass and soon
rose to a gale. The gale increased until everywhere there was naught
save gloom and darkness, gloom and darkness. The ground under Petru's
feet trembled and shook, till he felt as though somebody had taken the
world on his back and was dragging it away at full speed.

"Are you afraid?" asked the bay, shaking its mane.

"Not at all," replied Petru, summoning up his courage, though chills
were running down his back. "If a thing must be, all right; let it be
as it is."

"You need not fear," replied the bay, to encourage him. "Take the
bridle from my neck and try to catch the Welwa with it."

The horse had just time to say this and Petru had not even a chance
to unfasten the bridle properly, when the Welwa stood before him, a
monster so frightful, so terrible, that he could not look at it. It
has no head, yet it is not headless, it does not fly through the air,
yet neither does it walk on the earth. It has a mane like the horse,
horns like the stag, a face like the bear, eyes like the polecat, and
a body that resembles every thing except a living being! Such was the
Welwa which rushed upon Petru.

Petru rose in his stirrups and began to strike, sometimes with his
sword, sometimes with his arm, till the perspiration ran down his body
in streams.

A day and night passed away; the battle was not yet decided.

"Stop, so that we can rest a little while," said the Welwa, panting
for breath.

The hero let his sword fall.

"Don't stop!" cried the bay quickly, and Petru set to work again with
all his might.

The Welwa now neighed once like a horse, then howled like a wolf, and
again rushed upon Petru. The battle went on for another day and night,
and was even more terrible than before. Petru grew so weary that he
could scarcely move.

"Stop now! I see I am dealing with a person who understands fighting.
Stop!" said the Welwa for the second time. "Stop and let us settle our
quarrel."

"Don't stop!" cried the bay.

Petru fought on, though he could scarcely breathe. But the Welwa no
longer rushed so fiercely upon him and began to act with more care and
caution, as people do when they feel they have not much strength. So
the fight lasted till the dawn of the third day. When the rosy light
of morning began to glimmer, Petru--how, I don't know, it's enough
that he did it--threw the bridle over the head of the wearied Welwa,
which instantly became a horse--the handsomest horse in the world.

"Sweet be your life, for you have delivered me from enchantment," said
the transformed Welwa, and began to caress the bay charger. Petru
learned from their conversation that the Welwa was a brother of the
bay horse, and had been bewitched many years before by Holy
Wednesday.[6]

[Footnote 6: Miercuri-Mittwoch (Wednesday) and Mercuria, that is,
feminine form of Mercury.]

Petru tied the Welwa to his horse, sprang into the saddle, and
continued his journey. How did he ride? That I need not say. He rode
swiftly till he got out of the copper forest.

"Stand still, and let me look at what I have never seen before," said
Petru again, when they came out of the copper forest. A still more
marvelous one now stretched before him, a forest of glittering bushes
bearing the handsomest and most tempting flowers--he was entering the
Silver Wood. The blossoms began to talk still more sweetly and
enticingly than they had done in the Copper Forest. "Gather no more
flowers," said the Welwa that was tied to the bay, "for my brother is
seven times stronger than I."

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