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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
In "The Windfairies, and Other Tales," Mary De Morgan weaves a mesmerizing collection of stories steeped in enchanting folklore and rich symbolism. Her narrative style is characterized by lyrical prose that evokes a dreamlike quality, merging whimsy with deeper moral lessons. Set against the backdrop of late 19th-century Victorian society, these tales reflect contemporary themes of children's morality and the interplay between fantasy and reality, reflecting De Morgan's ability to craft narratives that both delight and enlighten. Readers will find her combination of mythical elements and relatable characters particularly compelling, inviting them to explore themes of bravery, kindness, and the transformative power of imagination. Mary De Morgan, an insightful figure within the realm of children's literature, was known for her strong beliefs in the importance of moral education through storytelling. Raised in a family that valued literature and intellectual pursuit, De Morgan was influenced by the broader literary movements of her time, including the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the folktale revival. Her understanding of the complexities of childhood inspired her to write stories that resonate with young readers while also prompting them to reflect on the values inherent within them. For anyone seeking to immerse themselves in a world of fantastical realms and profound life lessons, "The Windfairies, and Other Tales" is a treasure trove of imaginative storytelling. This collection not only captivates children but also resonates with adults, offering layers of meaning that encourage reflection and discussion. A must-read for those who appreciate the power of well-crafted tales to illuminate and inspire.
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The windfairies, and other tales
Table of Contents
THE WINDFAIRIES
There was once a windmill which stood on the downs by the sea, far from any town or village, and in which the miller lived alone with his little daughter. His wife had died when the little girl, whose name was Lucilla, was a baby, and so the miller lived by himself with his child, of whom he was very proud. As her father was busy with his work, and as little Lucilla had no other children to play with, she was alone nearly all day, and had to amuse herself as best she could, and one of her greatest pleasures was to sit and watch the great sails of the windmill figures like them, and they held each other by the hand, and were dancing and springing from the ground as lightly as if they had been made of feather-down.
“Come, sisters, come,” cried the one nearest Lucilla. “See, here is a little human child out here alone at twelve o’clock at night. Come and let us play with her.”
“Who are you?” asked Lucilla; “my name is Lucilla, and I live in the mill with my father.”
“We are windfairies,” said the first grey figure.
“Windfairies!” said Lucilla, “what are they?”
“We blow the winds and sweep the earth. When there are many of us together we make a great hurricane, and human beings are frightened. We it is who turn your mill wheel for you, and make all the little waves on the sea. See, if you will come with us we will take you for a ride on one of the sails of your mill. That is, if you will be brave, and not cry.”
“I will not cry one bit,” said Lucilla, and she sprang up, and held out her arms.
At once she was lifted up, and felt herself going higher and higher, till she rested on one of the great windmill sails, and, with the little grey elves beside her, was sweeping through the air, clinging to the sail.
“She is quite good,” whispered one, as she held Lucilla in her tiny white arms. “I really think we might teach her to dance, for she has not cried at all.”
“No, she would surely tell some one if we did,” said another. “Little human child, would you like us to teach you how to dance as we dance?”
“Yes, yes,” cried Lucilla; and now they were sweeping down near the ground, and the fairies slid off the sail with Lucilla in their arms, and let her slide gently to earth. “Teach me to dance, I beg. I will never tell anybody.”
“Ah, but that is what all mortals say,” whispered one who had not spoken yet, “no mortal can keep a secret. Never yet was one known who could be silent.”
“Try me,” cried Lucilla again, “I will never tell. Indeed I will not,” and she looked entreatingly from one to another of the elves.
“But if you did,” said they, “if you broke your promise to us when once you had made it, we should punish you severely.”
“But I promise faithfully,” repeated Lucilla, “I will never tell any one.”
“Well then, you may try,” they said. “Only remember, if you break your word to us, and tell any mortal who it was that taught you how to dance, you will never dance again, for your feet will become heavy as lead, and not only that, but some great misfortune will overtake whatever you love best in this world. But if you keep faith with us, then the windfairies will never forget you, but will come to your help in your direst hour of need.”
“Teach me, teach me,” cried Lucilla; “indeed I will never, never tell, and I long to dance as you do.”
“Come then,” they said, and some came behind her, and some went in front of her, and some took her arms and some her feet, and all at once Lucilla felt as if she were made of feather-down. She swayed up and down as lightly as they, and it seemed to her quite easy. Never had she been so happy, and she would gladly have danced for hours, but suddenly, just as the sun was beginning to show a red light in the sky, she heard her father’s horse galloping over the downs, and in an instant the windfairies had vanished.
When the miller came up to her, he was angry with her for being out on the grass instead of warm in bed, but Lucilla dared not tell him what had kept her, or say that she had been playing with windfairies.
Years passed, and Lucilla never saw the windfairies again, though she watched for them every night. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman, and her father was very proud of her. She was as tall and as lithe as a willow wand, and when she ran or danced it seemed as if she were as light as a feather blown in the wind. There were few people to see her, or tell her she was beautiful, for save the fisher folk who lived in little cottages on the beach, scarce anybody came to the downs. But all who saw her admired her beauty, and most of all her wonderful dancing. Sometimes she would go out on the downs, and dance and run there by herself, and her father would look at her and say: “Heaven help the maid! I don’t know whom she has learned it from, but I have never seen a dancer who can come nigh her.” Then sometimes she would go down to the sea-shore, and this she loved to do best of all, and there she would dance with the waves, and move with them as they slid up to her feet and drew back, and to those who watched, it seemed as if she and they were one together.
The time came when her father wished her to be married, and among the young fishermen and the country folk who came to the mill from the farms across the country, she had suitors enough, but always she said when a young man came to woo her, “First let me see how you can dance, for as dancing is the thing I love best in the world, it would be a pity that I and my husband should not be able to dance together,” and as none of them could dance as she did, she sent them all away, saying she would wait for a husband till she could find a man who could dance to her liking.
But one day there was a great storm, and a big ship was blown on to the shore close to the mill, and among the sailors was a young fellow with black curly hair and bright eyes and white teeth, and when he saw Lucilla, he said to himself, “I will wed that girl and take her home for my wife.” So one day as they sat on the downs together he begged her to marry him, and go back with him to his own land; he said he would give up going to sea, and would live with her in a little cottage and make their bread by fishing. Then Lucilla said, as she had said to all her other suitors, “First let me see how you can dance, for I will never marry any man who cannot dance with me.” The sailor swore he could dance as well as any man in the world, for all sailors can dance, he said, and they began to dance together on the downs. The sailor danced well and merrily, but Lucilla danced faster, and seemed as if she were made of feather-down; and then the sailor, seeing that his dancing was as nothing to hers, caught her by the waist, and held her still, crying, “My sweetheart, I cannot dance as you can, but my arms are strong enough to hold you still and keep you from dancing with any man but me.”
So Lucilla married the sailor, and went with him to live in his little cottage by the sea, many miles away from the mill, and as her father was growing old and no longer cared to work, he went with her too.
For some time the sailor and Lucilla lived together very happily, and they had two little children, and her husband fished and sold his fish, and often still, Lucilla would go down to the waves and dance with them as she had done in her old home. She tried to teach her little children to dance as she did, but they could not learn because the windfairies had never touched them. But one winter her husband’s boat was dashed to pieces, and the sea froze so that all the fish died, and they became so poor that they could barely get enough to eat. Then it chanced that a big ship came to the village where they lived, and the captain wanted men for a long journey, and her husband told Lucilla that he had best go with him, and then he would have enough money to buy another boat, and then next year they must hope for better luck. So Lucilla was left alone in the cottage with her father and her two little children, and she felt very lonely and sad without her husband, and often she thought of the mill and the windfairies, and when the wind blew, she would go down to the water’s edge and hold out her arms and pray them to take care of her husband’s ship, and bring it safe home again.
“Oh, kind windfairies,” she cried, “see, I have kept faith with you, so do you now keep faith with me, and do me no hurt.” And often she would dance by the edge of the waves, as she used to do in her old home, and think that the windfairies were dancing with her, and holding up her steps.
Now it chanced that one day, as Lucilla was dancing on the shore, there rode by two horsemen, and they stopped and watched her as she danced, with the waves coming close to her feet. Then they got down from their horses, and asked who she was, and where she had learned such dancing. She told them she was only the wife of a poor fisherman, but she had danced for long years, since she was a little child, when she had lived in a windmill, on the downs far away. They rode away, but next day they came again, and brought others with them, and begged Lucilla that she would go down to the water’s edge and dance with the waves as she had done yesterday. So she ran down the beach, and danced in time to the sea as it moved, and the strangers all applauded, and said to each other, “It is wonderful, it is marvellous.”
They then told her that they came from a country where the King loved nothing so much as beautiful dancing, and that he would give great sums of money to any one who danced well, and if she would go back with them to his court, and dance before the King, she should have a sack of gold to take home with her, and this would make her a rich woman, and her husband would never have need to work any more.
At first she refused, and said her husband was away, and would not know where she was gone, and she did not like to leave her two little children; but still the courtiers persuaded her, and said it would not be for long, and her father persuaded her too, since he said it would make them all rich if she brought home a sack of gold. So at last Lucilla agreed that she would go back with them to the King’s court and dance there, but she made them promise that before the spring came they would send her back to her own little cottage. On hearing this, the strangers were much delighted, and bid Lucilla make ready to start at once, and that night she said good-bye to her little ones, and left them, to go with the travellers. Her eyes were red with crying at leaving her home, and before she started, she went out alone on to the cliffs, and stretched out her arms, and called to the windfairies to go with her and help her, for she feared what she was going to do, and she begged them to be true to her, as she had been true to them.
They sailed for many days, till at last they came to a country of which Lucilla had never even heard, and to a big town, which seemed to her as if it must hold all the people in the world, so crowded was it, and above the town on the hill, they pointed out to her a royal palace, and told her it was where the King dwelt, and there she would have to dance ere the week was out.
“And it is most lucky we saw you just now,” said they, “for the King is just going to be married, and in a few days the Princess will arrive, and there will be festivities and rejoicing for days, and at some of these you will appear before their Majesties, and be sure you dance your very best.”
Then Lucilla went with them into a great hall close to the palace, where musicians were playing on every kind of instrument, and here the courtiers bid her dance on a platform at one end of the hall, in time to the music; and when they had seen it, the musicians one and all lay down their instruments, and rose together, clapping and applauding, and all declared that it was the greatest of luck that the travellers had met with Lucilla, and that it would delight the King more than anything they had prepared for him.
By and by the Princess who was to marry the King arrived, and the wedding was celebrated with much magnificence, and after the wedding there was a feast, and in the evening there was to be singing and dancing, and all sorts of play for the royal couple and the court to see, and then Lucilla was to dance. The courtier who brought her wished her to be dressed in the most gorgeous dress, with gold and jewels, but she pleaded that she might wear a light grey gown like the windfairies, because she remembered how they looked when they danced on the downs.
When the evening came when she was to dance before the King, she threw wide her window and held out her arms, and cried out, “Now help me, dear windfairies, as you have done before; keep faith with me, as I have kept faith with you.” But in truth she could scarce keep from crying with thoughts of her husband at sea, and her little ones at the cottage at home.
The hall was brilliantly lighted, and in the middle on the throne sat the King and the young Queen. The musicians began to play, and then Lucilla stepped forth on the platform and began to dance. She felt as light as the sea foam, and when she swayed and curved to the sound of the music, it seemed to her as if she heard only the swish of the waves as they beat upon the shore, and the murmur of the wind as it played with the water, and she thought of her husband out at sea, with the wind blowing his ship along, and of her little babies living in the cottage on the beach.
When she stopped, there was such a noise of applauding and cheering in the hall, as had never been heard there before, and the King sent for her, and asked her where she came from, and who had taught her such wonderful steps, but she only answered that she was the daughter of a poor miller, who lived in a windmill, and she thought she must have learnt to dance from watching the windmill’s sails go round. Every night the King would have her dance again and again, as he never tired of watching her, and every night Lucilla said to herself, “Now another night is gone, and I am one day nearer to their taking me back to my own home and my children, with a bag of gold to give to my husband when he comes back from sea.”
The new Queen was a handsome woman, but she was very jealous, and it made her angry that the King should admire the new dancer’s dancing so much, and she thought she would like to be able to dance like her. So one evening when no one was watching her, she put on a big cloak that covered her all over, and asked her way to where the dancer lived. Lucilla sat alone in the little house that they had given her to live in, and the Queen came in behind her, and took off her cloak, and bade her be silent and not say her name, for fear some one should be listening and know that she was there.
“Now,” she said, “I have come to you that you may tell me, though no one else knows it, who taught you to dance, that I may go and learn from them also to dance like you; for in the home that I come from, I was said to be the most graceful woman in the land and the best dancer, so that there is no dancing that I cannot learn.”
Lucilla trembled, but she answered:
“Your Majesty, I lived in a little windmill by the sea when I was a child, far from teachers or dancers, but I watched the windmill sails go round, morn, noon, and night; and perhaps it is that that taught me to dance as I do now. And if your Majesty wishes to learn to do what I do, I will gladly teach you all I know, and doubtless you will soon learn to dance far better than I.”
Upon this the Queen was delighted, and flung aside her cloak, and stood opposite to Lucilla, and begged her to begin to teach her at once, that she might learn as soon as possible. All that evening they danced, but when the Queen thought she looked just as Lucilla did, she appeared to be quite awkward and heavy beside her, and was dancing just as other mortals might. When she went away she was very much pleased, and said that she would come twice more to learn from her, and then she was sure that she would be perfect. In her heart Lucilla was very much frightened, because she knew that the Queen did not dance as she did, and never could. However, the next night she came again, and the next again, and then there was to be a grand court ball; and at this the Queen thought she would first show her husband how she could dance. The King himself was fond of dancing, and danced well, although not half so well as Lucilla’s husband the sailor; and the Queen thought how delighted he would be when he saw what a graceful wife he had got. As the ball began, all the fine people were saying to each other, it really seemed silly to dance after they had seen the wonderful new dancer, but the Queen smiled and thought to herself, “Now they will see that I can do quite as well as she.” When her turn came she tripped lightly forward and danced as best she could, and thought it was just like Lucilla, and the courtiers said among each other, “Our new Queen dances well,” but no one thought of saying that it was like Lucilla’s dancing, and the King said nothing at all on the matter; therefore the Queen felt herself growing hot and angry, and she turned red and white by turns.
“That lying wench has been tricking me,” she said to herself, “and she has not taught me right at all; but I will punish her for her deception, and soon she shall know what it is to deceive a Queen.”
So the next day she went to her husband and said, “Husband, I have thought much of the new wonderful dancer whom we all admire so much, and truly I have never seen any one on earth who could dance as she can; but now I think we should do well before she goes back to her own home to know who has taught her her marvellous art, so that we may have our court dancers taught, that they may be there to please us when she is gone, for really there is nothing on earth that cannot be learnt if it is taught in the right way.”
The King agreed, and they sent for Lucilla, and the King asked her to tell him where she had learnt her dancing, that they might summon the same teachers to teach their court dancers. But Lucilla answered as before—she did not know—she thought she must have learnt dancing from watching the windmill sails going round. At this the King became angry, and said, “That is nonsense, no one could learn dancing from looking at windmill sails, neither was it possible that she, a poor miller’s daughter, could have learnt such dancing by nature;” then he threatened her, that if she would not tell him the truth he should be obliged to punish her, and he said she should have a day to think of it in, but at the end of the next day, he should expect her to tell him everything he wanted to know quite plainly.
When she was gone away the King said to the Queen, “Wife, if this dancer persists in her silence, and will not tell us how she has learnt, there is another thing which we must do. We must keep her here to dance for us as much as we choose, and not let her return at all to the home from which she came.”
The Queen was silent for a little, but she felt very jealous at the thought of the dancer remaining at the court, so she nodded her head and said, “Yes, but I think she ought to tell us more about it; for myself, I begin to think that it is witchcraft, and perhaps she has been taught by the Evil One, and then we shouldn’t like her to remain here and dance to us however beautiful it be, for who knows what ill luck it might not bring upon us?” Upon this the King looked grave, and said he did not believe much in ill luck or good luck, but he should be loth to lose the dancer, so they had better settle to keep her if she declined to tell them how the other dancers were to be taught.
Meantime Lucilla went back to her little house, and wept bitterly. “Would that I had never left my babes and my home,” she cried, “for I cannot break my word to the windfairies, and if I did they might do some terrible harm to my little ones or to my husband at sea; yet if I refuse to tell them they will most likely put me into prison, and there I shall remain for my life, and my husband and children will never know what has become of me.” And she knelt down before the windows and lifted her arms and cried out, “Oh, dear windfairies, I have not broken faith with you, so don’t break faith with me, and come to my help and save me in my trouble.”
