The Norwegian Fairy Book - The Original Classic Edition. Stroebe Clara

       When they reached land, the captain and the quartermasters spoke of writing to their wives. "That is something you might just as well let be," said the cabin-boy, "seeing that you no longer have any wives."

       "What silly talk is this, young know-it-all! We have no wives?" said the captain. "Or do you happen to have done away with them?"

       asked the quartermasters.

       "No, all of us together did away with them," answered the boy, and told them what he had heard and seen that Sunday afternoon when he was on watch on the ship; while the crew was ashore, and the captain was buying his deckload of wood.

       And when they sailed home they learned that their wives had disappeared the day of the storm, and that[68] since that time no one had seen or heard anything more of them.

       NOTE

       A weird tale of the sea and of witches is that of "Storm Magic" (Asbjornsen, Huldreeventyr, I, p. 248. From the vicinity of Christiania, told by a sailor, Rasmus Olsen). In the "Fritjof Legend" the hero has a similar adventure at sea with two witches, who call up

       a tremendous storm. It would be interesting to know the inner context of the cabin-boy's counter magic, and why it is that the birch-wood, cast into the sea billet by billet, had the power to destroy the witches.

       [69] XII

       THE FOUR-SHILLING PIECE

       ONCE upon a time there was a poor woman, who lived in a wretched hut far away from the village. She had but little to bite and less to burn, so she sent her little boy to the forest to gather wood. He skipped and leaped, and leaped and skipped, in order to keep warm, for it was a cold, gray autumn day, and whenever he had gathered a root or a branch to add to his bundle, he had to slap his arms against his shoulders, for the cold made his hands as red as the whortleberry bushes over which he walked. When he had filled his barrow, and was wandering homeward, he crossed a field of stubble. There he saw lying a jagged white stone. "O, you poor old stone, how white and pale you are! You must be freezing terribly!" said the boy; took off his jacket, and laid it over the stone. And when he came back home with his wood, his mother asked him how it was that he was going around in the autumn cold in his

       shirt-sleeves. He told her that he had seen a jagged old stone, quite white and pale with the frost, and that he had given it his jacket. "You fool," said the woman, "do you think a stone can freeze? And even if it had chattered with frost, still, charity begins at home. Your clothes cost enough as it is, even when you don't hang them on[70] the stones out in the field!"--and with that she drove the boy out again to fetch his jacket. When he came to the stone, the stone had turned around, and had raised itself from the ground on one side. "Yes, and I'm sure it is because you have the jacket, poor fellow!" said the boy. But when he looked more closely, there was a chest full of bright silver coins under the stone. "That must be stolen money," thought the boy, "for no one lays money honestly earned under stones in the wood." And he took the chest, and carried it down to the pond nearby, and threw in the whole pile of

       21

       money. But a four-shilling piece was left swimming on the top of the water. "Well, this one is honest, for whatever is honest will float," said the boy. And he took the four-shilling piece and the jacket home with him. He told his mother what had happened to him, that the stone had turned around, and that he had found a chest full of silver coins, and had thrown it into the pond because it was stolen money. "But a four-shilling piece floated, and that I took along, because it was honest," said the boy. "You are a fool,"

       said the woman--for she was as angry as could be--"if nothing were honest save what floats on the water, there would be but little

       honesty left in the world. And if the money had been stolen ten times over, still you had found it, and charity begins at home. If you had kept the money, we might have passed the rest of our lives in peace and comfort. But you are a dunderhead and will stay a dunderhead, and I won't be tormented and burdened with you[71] any longer. Now you must get out and earn your own living."

       So the boy had to go out into the wide world, and wandered about far and near looking for service. But wherever he went people found him too small or too weak, and said that they could make no use of him. At last he came to a merchant. There they kept him to work in the kitchen, and he had to fetch wood and water for the cook. When he had been there for some time, the merchant decided to journey to far countries, and asked all his servants what he should buy and bring back home for them. After all had told him what they wanted, came the turn of the little fellow who carried wood and water for the kitchen. He handed him his four-shilling piece. "Well, and what am I to buy for it?" asked the merchant. "It will not be a large purchase." "Buy whatever it will bring, it is honest money, that I know," said the boy. His master promised to do so, and sailed away.