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The Bound Princess
I The Fire-Eaters |
II The Galloping Plough |
III The Thirsty Well |
IV The Princess Melilot |
V The Burning Rose |
VI The Camphor-Worm
I
THE FIRE-EATERS
LONG time ago there lived a man who had the biggest head in the world. Into it he
had crammed all the knowledge that might
be gathered from the
four corners of the earth. Every one said
he was the wisest man living. "If I could
only find a wife," said the sage, "as wise
for a woman as I am for a man, what a race
of head-pieces we could bring into the
world!"
He waited many years before any such mate could be found for him: yet, at last, found she was one into whose head was
bestowed all the wisdom that might be gathered from the four quarters of heaven.
They were both old, but kings came
from all sides to their wedding, and offered
themselves as god-parents to the first-born
of the new race that was to be. But, to
the grief of his parents, the child, when
he arrived, proved to be a simpleton ; and
no second child ever came to repair the
mistake of the first.
That he was a simpleton was evident;
his head was small and his limbs were
large, and he could run long before he
could talk or do arithmetic. In the bitterness of their hearts his father and mother
named him Noodle, without the aid of
any royal god-parents ; and from that moment, for any care they took in his bringing-up, they washed their wise hands of him.
Noodle grew and prospered, and enjoyed life in his own foolish way. When
his father and mother died within a short
time of each other, they left him alone
without any friend in the world.
For a good while Noodle lived on just
what he could find in the house, in a
hand-to-mouth sort of way, till at last
only the furniture and the four bare walls
were left to him.
One cold winter's night he sat brooding
over the fire, wondering where he should
get food for the morrow, when he heard
feet coming up to the door, and a knock
striking low down upon the panel. Outside there was a faint chirping and crackling sound, and a whispering as of fire
licking against the woodwork without.
He opened the door and peered forth
into the night. There, just before him,
stood seven little men huddled up together;
three feet high they were, with bright yellow faces all shrivelled and sharp, and eyes whose light leaped and sank like candle
flame before a gust.
When they saw him, they shut their
eyes and opened famished mouths at him,
pointing inwards with flickering fingertips, and shivering from head to foot with
cold, although it seemed to the youth as if
the warmth of a slow fire came from them.
c Alas ! ' said Noodle, in reply to these
signs of hunger, c I have not left even a
crust of bread in the house to give you !
But at least come in and make yourselves
warm ! ' He touched the foremost, mak-
ing signs for them all to enter. c Ah,' he
cried, 'what is this, and what are you, that
the mere touch of you burns my finger? '
Without answer they huddled tremblingly across the threshold ; but so soon
as they saw the fire burning on the hearth,
they yelped all together like a pack of
hounds, and, throwing themselves face
forwards into the hot embers, began ravenously to lap up the flames. They lapped
and lapped, and the more they lapped
the more the fire sank away and died.
Then with their flickering finger-tips they
stirred the hot logs and coals, burrowing
after the thin tapes and swirls of vanishing flame, and fetching them out like small
blue eels still wriggling for escape.
After each blue wisp had been gulped
down, they sipped and sucked at their fingers for any least tricklet of flavour that
might be left ; and at the last seemed more
famished than when they began.
'More, more, O wise Noodle, give us
more!' they cried ; and Noodle threw
the last of his fuel on the embers.
They breathed round it, fanning it into
a great blaze that leaped and danced up to
the rafters ; then they fell on, till not a
fleck or a flake of it was left. Noodle, seeing them still famished, broke up a stool
and threw that on the hearth. And again they flared it with their breath and gobbled
off the flame. When the stool was finished
he threw in the table, then the dresser, and
after that the oak-chest and the window-seat.
Still they feasted and were not fed.
Noodle fetched an axe, and broke down
the door; then he wrenched up the boards
from the floor, and pulled the beams and
rafters out of the ceiling ; yet, even so, his
guests were not to be satisfied.
'I have nothing left,' he said, 'but the
house itself; but since you are still hungry
you shall be welcome to it!'
He scattered the fire that remained upon
the hearth, and threw it out and about the
room; and as he ran forth to escape, up
against all the walls and right through the
roof rose a great crackling sheaf of flame.
In the midst of the fire, Noodle could
see his seven guests lying along on their
bellies, slopping their hands in the heat, and lapping up the flames with their
tongues. 'Surely,' he thought, 'I have
given them enough to eat at last!'
After a while all the fire was eaten away,
and only the black and smouldering ruins
were left. Day came coldly to light, and
there sat Noodle, without a home in the
world, watching with considerate eye his
seven guests finishing their inordinate
repast.
They all rose to their feet together, and
came towards him bowing ; as they approached he felt the heat of their bodies as
it had been seven furnaces.
'Enough, O wise Noodle ! ' said they,
'we have had enough ! ' 'That,' answered
Noodle, 'is the least thing left me to
wonder at. Go your ways in peace ; but
first tell me, who are you ? ' They re-
plied, 'We are the Fire-eaters : far from
our own land, and strangers, you have
done us this service; what, now, can we do to serve you?' 'Put me in the way
of a living,' said Noodle, 'and you will do
me the greatest service of all.'
Then the one of them who seemed to
be chief took from his finger a ring having
for its centre a great firestone, and threw
it into the snow, saying, 'Wait for three
hours till the ring shall have had time to
cool, then take it, and wear it ; and whatever
fortune you deserve it shall bring you.
For this ring is the sweetener of everything
that it touches : bread it turns into rich
meats, water into strong wine, grief into
virtue, and labour into strength. Also,
if you ever need our help, you have but
to brandish the ring, and the gleam of it
will reach us, and we will be with you
wherever you may be,'
With that they bowed their top-knots to
the ground and departed, inverting themselves swiftly till only the shining print of
seven pairs of feet remained, red-hot, over
the place where they had been standing.
Noodle waited for three hours ; then he
took up the firestone ring, and putting it
on his finger set out into the world.
At the first door he came to, he begged
a crust of bread, and touching it with the
ring found it tasted like rich meats, well
cooked and delicately flavoured. Also,
the water which he drew in the hollow of
his hand from a brook by the roadside
tasted to him like strong wine.
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