They had been married for seven years, but had neither son nor daughter, and that was a great grief to both of them. More than once it happened that when the king was in a bad temper, he let it out on the poor queen, and said that here they were now, getting old, and neither they nor the kingdom had an heir, and it was all her fault. This was hard to listen to, and she went and cried and vexed herself.
The Spider King Daughter Epub File
This was a long time to wait. The king longed so much to get a sight of his daughter, and the queen no less than he, but she knew that it was not like other children, for it could speak immediately after it was born, and was as wise as older folk. This the nurse had told her, for with her the queen had a talk now and again, but there was no one who had ever seen the princess. The queen had also seen what the wise woman could do, so she insisted strongly that her warning should be obeyed. The king often lost his patience, and was determined to see his daughter, but the queen always put him off the idea, and so things went on, until the very day before the princess completed her fourteenth year.
With the first sunbeam the watch came and opened the church, and not only was the colonel there, but the king in person, come to see what had happened to the sentinel. He found them both sitting hand in hand on the step in front of the altar, and immediately knew his daughter again, and took her in his arms, thanking God and her deliverer. He made no objections to what they had arranged, and so Christian the smith held his wedding with the princess, and got half the kingdom at once, and the whole of it when the king died.
Long ago there lived a rich merchant who, besides possessing more treasures than any king in the world, had in his great hall three chairs, one of silver, one of gold, and one of diamonds. But his greatest treasure of all was his only daughter, who was called Catherine.
Long ago there lived a very rich man who had three sons. When he felt himself to be dying he divided his property between them, making them share alike, both in money and lands. Soon after he died the king set forth a proclamation through the whole country that whoever could build a ship that should float both on land and sea should have his daughter to wife.
The elder brother rode straight on till he reached the borders of a strange kingdom. He crossed the frontier, and soon found himself on the banks of a river; and before him, in the middle of the stream, a beautiful girl sat chained to a rock and weeping bitterly. For in this river dwelt a serpent with seven heads, who threatened to lay waste the whole land by breathing fire and flame from his nostrils unless the king sent him every morning a man for his breakfast. This had gone on so long that now there were no men left, and he had been obliged to send his own daughter instead, and the poor girl was waiting till the monster got hungry and felt inclined to eat her.
However, the king was much too anxious to see his daughter married to listen to any excuses, and he declared that a dress must be put together somehow for the bride to wear. But when he went to look at the princess, she was such a figure that he agreed that it would be unfitting for her position to be seen in such a gown, and he ordered the ceremony and the banquet to be postponed for a few hours, so that the tailors might take the dress to pieces and make it fit.
He searched all round for the lamp, but could find it nowhere, for the witch always had it safely guarded, as it was one of her most precious treasures. When he became tired of searching for it he crept into the baking- oven, intending to lie down there and sleep till morning; but just at that moment he heard the witch calling from her bed to one of her daughters, and telling her to make some porridge for her. She had grown hungry, and had taken such a fancy to some porridge. The daughter got out of bed, kindled the fire, and put on a pot with water in it.
The daughter took the lamp which shone over seven kingdoms, and went out to the well for water, while Esben slipped out after her. When she was going to draw the water from the well she set the lamp down on a stone beside her. Esben watched his chance, seized the lamp, and gave her a push from behind, so that she plumped head first into the well. Then he made off with the lamp. But the witch got out of her bed and ran after him, crying:
Esben was now put into a little dark hole, where he neither saw sun nor moon, and there he was fed on sweet milk and nut-kernels. The daughter had enough to do cracking nuts for him, and at the end of fourteen days she had only one tooth left in her mouth; she had broken all the rest with the nuts. In this time however, she had taken a liking to Esben, and would willingly have set him free, but could not.
She then got a dress made for her own daughter, like the finest robe for a queen, and she had a mask prepared and put upon her face, so that she looked quite pretty, and gave her strict orders not to take it off until the king had promised to wed her.
To all such story-telling, as to riddling and song, the name of "Anansi story" is applied,--an appellation at least as old as 1816, when Monk Lewis in his journal describes the classes of "Nancy stories" popular in his day among the negroes as the tragical witch story and the farcical "neger-trick." The "neger-trick" harks back to slave times and is rarely heard to-day; tales of sorcery, too, are heard best from the lips of older narrators. Modern European fairy tales and animal stories (evidently unknown to Lewis) have taken their place. Two influences have dominated story-telling in Jamaica, the first an absorbing interest in the magical effect of song which, at least in the old witch tales, far surpasses that in the action of the story; the second, the conception of the spider Anansi as the trickster hero among a group of animal figures. Anansi is the culture hero of the Gold Coast,--a kind of god--, just as Turtle is of the Slave coast and Hare (our own Brer Rabbit) of the Bantu people "Anansi stories" regularly form the entertainment during wake-nights, and it is difficult not to believe that thevividness with which these animal actors take part in the story springs from the idea that they really represent the dead in the underworld whose spirits have the power, according to the native belief, of taking animal form. The head-man on a Westmoreland cattle-pen even assured me that Anansi, once a man, was now leader of the dead in this land of shades. However this may be, the development of Jamaican obeah or witchcraft has been along the same two lines of interest. Magic songs are used in communicating with the dead, and the obeah-man who sets a ghost upon an enemy often sends it in the form of some animal; hence there are animals which must be carefully handled lest they be something other than they appear. Riddling is a favorite pastime of the Jamaica negro. Much is preserved from old African originals in the personification of common objects of yard and road-side, much is borrowed also from old English folk riddling. That this spread has been along the line of a common language is proved by the fact that only a dozen parallels occur in Mason's Spanish collection from Porto Rico, at least ten of which are quoted by Espinosa from New Mexico, while of collections from English-speaking neighbors, fourteen out of fifty-five riddles collected in South Carolina and nine out of twenty-one from Andros Island are found also in Jamaica. Particular patterns are set for Jamaica riddling into which the phrasing falls with a rhythmical swing careless of rhyme,--"My father has in his yard" and "Going up to town." The giving of a riddle is regularly preceded by a formula drawn from old English sources--
(2) The tying trick is variously treated. In Callaway, 29, and Theal, the "cannibal's" hair is plaited into the thatch, in Jacottet, the tail; in Callaway, 358, the tail is fastened into the ground. In Dayrell, the two play at tying each other (as in numbers 16 and 37) and the weaker animal refuses to untie the stronger. In Barker, the stronger animal consents to be hung in order to have his teeth beautifully filed. In Cronise & Ward and in the American versions (Harris, Christensen, Lenz, Ernst), the lying takes place under pretence of storm, but a pretence made plausible by shaking the trees as if a storm were coming. In Jacottet's Story, Lion, whose tail has been thatched into the hut, prays for a storm to kill his tormentor; it comes and destroys Lion himself. In Koch-Grünberg (Taulipang), the story is mixed with the motive of the support of the stone.
Deh was Anansi. He go out an' court two young lady was de king daughter an' mak dem a fool, an' dem ketch him an' tie him, an' de two sister go an' look a bundle a wood fe go an' mak a fire under a copper[2] fe bu'n him wid hot water. An' after when dem gone, he see Tiger was coming. Anansi said, "Lawd! Brar Tiger, I get into trouble heah!" An' said, "Fe wha'?" An' say, "King daughter wan' lib wid dem, come tie me." Tiger say, 'You fool, mak y' loose an' tie me!"
One day Anansi was walking an' walk till he go into a wood and see a man have a barbecue[23]--plenty of meat. An' him go an' say, "Hi, Brar! how you do?" Man no 'peak. "Brar, you have plenty of meat an' you want some one fe 'top wid you?" Man no 'peak. Say, "Brar, gi' me little breakfas' now?" Man no 'peak. Say, "Oh, Brar, you no talk, but me going to tak litt'e fe me breakfas'." Man no 'peak. Nansi go up on barbecue say, "Brar say me mus' tak meat." No 'peak to him yet. Tak de meat an' say, 'Brar, gi' me you pot?" Man no 'peak to him. Say, "Brar, mus' put on yo' pot go get meat." Man no 'peak. Put on de pot an' go on de barbecue fetch meat. When he cook done, tak him bag, load up, say, "Brar, me gwine now." Man no 'peak. "To-morrow I come back see you, an' I see you need servant an' I going to bring one of me daughter." No 'peak. 2ff7e9595c
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