Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks by William Elliot Griffis
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William Elliot Griffis >> Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks
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This was called a nightmare, or in Dutch a "nacht merrie." "Nacht" means
night, and "merrie" a filly or a mare. In the dream, it was not a small
or a young horse, but always a big mare that squatted down on a man's
stomach.
In those days, instead of seeking for the trouble inside, or asking
whether there was any connection between nightmares and too hearty
eating of cheese, the Dutch fathers laid it all on the goblins.
The goblins, or sooty elves, that used to live in Holland, were ugly,
short fellows, very smart, quick in action and able to travel far in a
second. They were first cousins to the kabouters. They had big heads,
green eyes and split feet, like cows. They were so ugly, that they were
ordered to live under ground and never come out during the day. If they
did, they would be turned to stone.
The goblins had a bad reputation for mischief. They liked to have fun
with human beings. They would listen to the conversation of people and
then mock them by repeating the last word. That is the reason why echoes
were called "week klank," or dwarf's talk.
Because these goblins were short, they envied men their greater stature
and wanted to grow to the height of human beings. As they were not able
of themselves to do this, they often sneaked into a house and snatched a
child out of the cradle. In place of the stolen baby, one of their own
wizened children was laid. That was the reason why many a poor little
baby, that grew puny and thin, was called a "wiseel-kind," or
changeling. When the sick baby could not get well, and medicine or care
seemed to do no good, the mother thought that the goblins had taken away
her own child.
It was only the female goblins that would change themselves into night
mares and sit on the body of the dreamer. They usually came in through a
hole or a crack; but if that person in the house could plug up the hole,
or stop the crack, he could conquer the female goblin, and do what he
pleased with her. If a man wanted to, he could make her his wife. So
long as the hole was kept stopped up, by which the goblin entered, she
made a good wife. If this crack was left open, or if the plug dropped
out of the hole, the she-goblin was off and could never be found again.
The ruler of the goblins lived beneath the earth, as the king of the
underworld. His palace was made of gold and glittered with gems. He had
riches more than men could count. All the goblins and kabouters, who
worked in the mines and at the forges and anvils, making swords, spears,
bells, or jewels, obeyed him.
The most wonderful things about these dwarfs was the way in which they
made themselves invisible, so that men were able to see neither the
night mares nor the male goblins, while at their mischief. This was a
little red cap which every goblin possessed, and which he was careful
never to lose. The red cap acted like a snuffer on a candle, to put it
out, and while under it, no goblin could be seen by mortal eyes.
Now it happened that one night, as a dear old lady lay dying on her bed,
a middle-sized goblin, with his red cap on, came in through a crack into
the room, and stood at the foot of her bed. Just for mischief and to
frighten her by making himself visible, he took off his red cap.
When the old lady saw the imp, she cried out loudly:
"Go way, go way. Don't you know I belong to my Lord?"
But the goblin dwarf only laughed at her, with his green eyes.
Calling her daughter Alida, the old lady whispered in her ear:
"Bring me my wooden shoes."
Rising up in her bed, the old lady hurled the heavy klomps, one after
the other, at the goblin's head. At this, he started to get out through
the crack, and away, but before his body was half out, Alida snatched
his red cap away. Then she stuck a needle in his cloven foot that made
him howl with pain. Alida looked at the crack through which he escaped
and found it quite sooty.
Twirling the little red cap around on her forefinger, a brilliant
thought struck her. She went and told the men her plan, and they agreed
to it. This was to gather hundreds of farmers and townfolk, boys and men
together, on the next moonlight night, and round up all the goblins in
Drenthe. By pulling off their caps, and holding them till the sun rose,
when they would be petrified, the whole brood could be exterminated.
So, knowing that the goblin would come the next night, to steal back his
red cap, she left a note outside the crack, telling him to bring several
hundred goblins to the great moor, or veldt. There, at a certain hour
near midnight, he would find the red cap on a bush. With his companions,
he could celebrate the return of the cap. In exchange for this, she
asked the goblin to bring her a gold necklace.
The moonlight night came round and hundreds of the men of Drenthe
gathered together. They were armed with horseshoes, and with witch-hazel
and other plants, which are like poison to the sooty elves. They had
also bits of parchment covered with runes, a strange kind of writing,
and various charms which are supposed to be harmful to goblins. It was
agreed to move together in a circle towards the centre, where the lady
Alida was to hang the red cap upon a bush. Then, with a rush, the men
were to snatch off all the goblins' caps, pulling and grabbing, whether
they could see, or even feel anything, or not.
The placing of the red cap upon the bush in the centre, by the lady
Alida, was the signal.
So, when the great round-up narrowed to a small space, the men began to
grab, snatch and pull. Putting their hands out in the air, at the height
of about a yard from the ground, they hustled and pushed hard. In a few
minutes, hundreds of red caps were in their hands, and as many goblins
became visible. They were, indeed, an ugly host.
Yet hundreds of other goblins escaped, with their caps on, and were
still invisible. As they broke away in groups, however, they were seen,
for in each bunch was one or more visible fellow, because he was
capless. So the men divided into squads, to chase the imps a long
distance, even to many distant places. It was a most curious night
battle. Here could be seen groups of men in a tussle with the goblins,
many more of which, but by no means all, were made capless and visible.
[Illustration: AT THE FIRST LEVEL RAY THE GOBLINS WERE ALL TURNED TO STONE]
The racket kept up till the sky in the east was gray. Had all the
goblins run away, it would have been well with them. Hundreds of them
did, but the others were so anxious to help their fellows, or to get
back their own caps, fearing the disgrace of returning head bare to
their king, and getting a good scolding, that the sun suddenly rose on
them, before they knew it was day.
At the first level ray, the goblins were all turned to stone.
The treeless, desolate land, which, a moment before, was full of
struggling goblins and men, became as quiet as the blue sky above.
Nothing but some rounded rocks or stones, in groups, marked the spot
where the bloodless battle of imps and men had been fought.
There, these stones, big and little, lie to this day. Among the
buckwheat, and the potato blossoms of the summer, under the shadows and
clouds, and whispering breezes of autumn, or covered with the snows of
winter, they are seen on desolate heaths. Over some of them, oak trees,
centuries old, have grown. Others are near, or among, the farmers' grain
fields, or, not far from houses and barn-yards. The cows wander among
them, knowing nothing of their past. And the goblins come no more.
THE MOULDY PENNY
"Gold makes a woman penny-white," said the Dutch, in the days when
fairies were plentiful and often in their thoughts. What did the proverb
mean? Who ever saw a white penny?
Well, that was long ago, when pennies were white, because they were then
made of silver. Each one was worth a denary, which was a coin worth
about a shilling, or a quarter of a dollar.
As the Dutch had pounds, shillings and pence, before the English had
them, we see what _d_ in the signs £ s. d. means, that is, a
denary, or a white penny, made of silver.
In the old days, before the Dutch had houses with glass windows or
clothes of cloth or linen, or hats or shoes, cows and horses, or butter
and cheese, they knew nothing of money and they cared less. Almost
everything, even the land, was owned in common by all. Their wants were
few. Whenever they needed anything from other countries they swapped or
bartered. In this way they traded salt for furs, or fish for iron. But
when they met with, or had to fight, another tribe that was stronger or
richer, or knew more than they did, they required other things, which
the forests and waters could not furnish. So, by and by, pedlars and
merchants came up from the south. They brought new and strange articles,
such as mirrors, jewelry, clothes, and pretty things, which the girls
and women wanted and had begged their daddies and husbands to get for
them. For the men, they brought iron tools and better weapons, improved
traps, to catch wild beasts, and wagons, with wheels that had spokes.
When regular trade began, it became necessary to have money of some
kind.
Then coins of gold, silver, and copper were seen in the towns and
villages, and even in the woods and on the heaths of Holland. Yet there
was a good deal that was strange and mysterious about these round,
shining bits of metal, called money.
"Money. What is money?" asked many a proud warrior disdainfully.
Then the wise men explained to the fighting men, that money was named
after Juno Moneta, a goddess in Rome. She told men that no one would
ever want for money who was honest and just. Then, by and by, the mint
was in her temple and money was coined there. Then, later, in Holland,
the word meant money, but many people, who wanted to get rich quickly,
worshipped her. In time, however, the word "gold" meant money in
general.
When a great ruler, named Charlemagne, conquered or made treaties with
our ancestors, he allowed them to have mints and to coin money. Then,
again, it seemed wonderful how the pedlars and the goldsmiths and the
men called Lombards--strange long-bearded men from the south, who came
among the Dutch--grew rich faster than the work people. They seemed to
amass gold simply by handling money.
When a man who knew what a silver penny would do, made a present of one
to his wife, her face lighted up with joy. So in time, the word "penny
white," meant the smiling face of a happy woman. Yet it was also noticed
that the more people had, the more they wanted. The girls and boys
quickly found that money would buy what the pedlars brought. In the
towns, shops sprang up, in which were many curious things, which tempted
people to buy.
Some tried to spend their money and keep it too--to eat their cake and
have it also--but they soon found that they could not do this. There
were still many foolish, as well as wise people, in the land, even
during the new time of money. A few saved their coins and were happy in
giving some to the poor and needy. Many fathers had what was called a
"sparpot," or home savings bank, and taught their children the right use
of money. It began to be the custom for people to have family names, so
that a girl was not merely the daughter of so-and-so, nor a boy the son
of a certain father. In the selection of names, those which had the word
"penny" in them proved to be very popular. To keep a coin in the little
home bank, without spending it, long enough for it to gather mould,
which it did easily in the damp climate of Holland, that is, to darken
and get a crust on it, was considered a great virtue in the owner. This
showed that the owner had a strong mind and power of self-control. So
the name "Schimmelpennig," or "mouldy penny," became honorable, because
such people were wise and often kind and good. They did not waste their
money, but made good use of it.
On the other hand, were some mean and stingy folks, who liked to hear
the coins jingle. Instead of wisely spending their cash, or trading with
it, they hoarded their coins; that is, they hid them away in a stocking,
or a purse, or in a jar, or a cracked cooking pot, that couldn't be
used. Often they put it away somewhere in the chimney, behind a loose
brick. Then, at night, when no one was looking, these miserly folks
counted, rubbed, jingled, and gloated over the shining coins and never
helped anybody. So there grew up three sorts of people, called the
thrifty, the spendthrifts, and the misers. These last were the meanest
and most disliked of all. Others, again, hid their money away, so as to
have some, when sick, or old, and they talked about it. No one found
fault with these, though some laughed and said "a penny in the savings
jar makes more noise than when it is full of gold." Even when folks got
married they were exhorted by the minister to save money, "so as to have
something to give to the poor."
Now when the fairies, that work down underground, heard that the Dutch
had learned the use of money, and had even built a mint to stamp the
metal, they held a feast to talk over what they should do to help or
harm. In any event, they wanted to have some fun with the mortals above
ground.
That has always been the way with kabouters. They are in for fun, first,
last, and always. So, with punches and hammers, they made counterfeit
money. Then, in league with the elves, they began also to delude misers
and make them believe that much money makes men happy.
A long time after the mint had been built, two kabouters met to talk
over their adventures.
"It is wonderful what fools these creatures called men are," said the
first one. "There's old Vrek. He has been hoarding coins for the last
fifty years. Now, he has a pile of gold in guilders and stivers, but
there's hardly anything of his old self left. His soul is as small as a
shrimp. I whispered to him not to let out his money in trade, but to
keep it shut up. His strong box is full to bursting, but what went into
the chest has oozed out of the man. He died, last night, and hardly
anybody considers him worth burying. Some one on the street to-day asked
what Vrek had left behind. The answer was 'Nothing--he took it all with
him, for he had so little to take.'"
"That's jolly," said the older kabouter, who was a wicked looking
fellow. "I'll get some fun out of this. To shrivel up souls will be my
business henceforth. There's nothing like this newfangled business of
getting money, that will do it so surely."
So this ugly old imp went "snooping" around, as the Dutch say, about
people who sneak and dodge in and out of places, to which they ought not
to go, and in houses where they should not be found. This imp's purpose
was to make men crazy on the subject of making money, when they tried,
as many of them did, to get rich quickly in mean ways. Sorry to tell,
the imp found a good many promising specimens to work upon, at his
business of making some wise men foolish. He taught them to take out of
their souls what they hoarded away. To such fellows, when they became
misers, he gave the name of "Schim," which means a shadow. It was
believed by some people that such shrivelled up wretches had no bowels.
Soon after this, a great meeting of kabouters was held, in the dark
realms below ground. Each one told what he had been doing on the earth.
After the little imps had reported, the chief kabouter, when his turn
came, cried out:
"I shall tell of three brothers, and what each one did with the first
silver penny he earned."
"Go on," they all cried.
"I've caught one schim young. He married a wife only last year, but he
won't give her one gulden a year to dress on. He skimps the table, pares
the cheese till the rind is as thin as paper, and makes her live on skim
milk and barley. Besides this, he won't help the poor with a stiver. I
saw him put away a bright and shining silver penny, fresh from the mint.
He hid coin and pocketbook in the bricks of a chimney. So I climbed down
from the roof, seized both and ran away. I smeared the purse with wax
and hid it in the thick rib of a boat, by the wharf. There the penny
will gather mould enough. Ha! Ha! Ha!"
At this, the little imps broke out into a titter that sounded like the
cackle of a hen trying to tell she had laid an egg.
"Good for you! Serves the old schim right," said a good kabouter, who
loved to help human beings. "Now, I'll tell you about his brother, who
has a wife and baby. He feeds and clothes them well, and takes good care
of his old mother.
"Almost every week he helps some poor little boy, or girl, that has no
mother or father. I heard him say he wished he could take care of poor
orphans. So, when he was asleep, at night, I whispered in his ear and
made him dream.
"'Put away your coin where it won't get mouldy and show that a penny
that keeps moving is not like a rolling stone that gathers no moss.
Deliver it to the goldsmiths for interest and leave it in your will to
increase, until it becomes a great sum. Then, long after you are dead,
the money you have saved and left for the poor _weesies_ (orphans)
will build a house for them. It will furnish food and beds and pay for
nurses that will care for them, and good women who will be like mothers.
Other folks, seeing what you have done, will build orphan houses. Then
we shall have a Wees House (orphan asylum) in every town. No child,
without a father or mother, in all Holland, will have to cry for milk or
bread. Don't let your penny mould.'
"The third brother, named Spill-penny, woke up on the same morning, with
a headache. He remembered that he had spent his silver penny at the gin
house, buying drinks for a lot of worthless fellows like himself. He and
his wife, with little to eat, had to wear ragged clothes, and the baby
had not one toy to play with. When his wife gently chided him, he ran
out of the house in bad humor. Going to the tap room, he ordered a drink
of what we call 'Dutch courage,' that is, a glass of gin, and drank it
down. Then what do you think he did?"
"Tell us," cried the imps uproariously.
"He went into a clothing house, bought a suit of clothes, and had it
'charged.'"
"That's it. I've known others like him," said an old imp.
"Now it was kermiss day in the village, and all that afternoon and
evening this spendthrift was roystering with his fellow 'zuip zaks'
(boon companions). With them, it was 'always drunk, always dry.' Near
midnight, being too full of gin, he stumbled in the gutter, struck his
head on the curb, and fell down senseless.
"Her husband not coming home that night, the distracted wife went out
early in the morning. She found several men lying asleep on the
sidewalks or in the gutters. She turned each one over, just as she did
buckwheat cakes on the griddle, to see if this man or that was hers. At
last she discovered her worthless husband, but no shaking or pulling
could awake him. He was dead.
"Now there was a covetous undertaker in town, who carted away the
corpse, and then told the widow that she must spend much money on the
funeral, in order to have her husband buried properly; or else, the
tongues of the neighbors would wag. So the poor woman had to sell her
cow, the only thing she had, and was left poorer than ever. That was the
end of Spill-penny."
"A jolly story," cried the kabouters in chorus. "Served him right. Now
tell us about Vrek the miser. Go on."
"Well, the saying 'Much coin, much care,' is hardly true of him, for I
and my trusty helpers ran away with all he had. With his first silver
penny he began to hoard his money. He has been hunting for years for
that penny, but has not found it. It will be rather mouldy, should he
find it, but that he never will."
"Why not?" asked a young imp.
"For a good reason. He would not pay his boatmen their wages. So they
struck, and refused to work. When he tried to sail his own boat, it
toppled over and sunk, and Vrek was drowned. His wife was saved the
expenses of a funeral, for his carcass was never found, and the covetous
undertaker lost a job."
"What of the third one?" they asked.
"Oh, Mynheer Eerlyk, you mean? No harm can come to him. Everybody loves
him and he cares for the orphans. There will be no mouldy penny in his
house."
Then the meeting broke up. The good kabouters were happy. The bad ones,
the imps, were sorry to miss what they hoped would be a jolly story.
When a thousand years passed away and the age of newspapers and copper
pennies had come, there were no descendants of the two brothers
Spill-penny and Schim; but of Mynheer Eerlyk there were as many as the
years that had flown since he made a will. In this document, he ordered
that his money, in guilders of gold and pennies of silver, should remain
at compound interest for four hundred years. In time, the ever
increasing sum passed from the goldsmiths to the bankers, and kept on
growing enormously. At last this large fortune was spent in building
hundreds of homes for orphans.
According to his wish, each girl in the asylum dressed in clothes that
were of the colors on the city arms. In Amsterdam, for example, each
orphan child's frock is half red and half black, with white aprons, and
the linen and lace caps are very neat and becoming to their rosy faces.
In Friesland, where golden hair and apple blossom cheeks are so often
seen with the white lace and linen, some one has called the orphan girls
"Apples of gold in pictures of silver." Among the many glories of the
Netherlands is her care for the aged and the orphans.
One of the thirty generations of the Eerlyks read one day in the
newspaper:
"Last week, while digging a very deep canal, some workman struck his
pickaxe against timbers that were black with age, and nearly as hard as
stone. These, on being brought up, showed that they were the ribs of an
ancient boat. Learned men say that there was once a river here, which
long since dried up. All the pieces of the boat were recovered, and,
under the skilful hands of our ship carpenters, have been put together
and the whole vessel is now set up and on view in our museum."
"We'll go down to-morrow on our way home from school, and see the
curiosity," cried one of the Eerlyk boys, clapping his hands.
"Wait," said his father, "there's more in the story.
"To-day, the janitor of the museum, while examining a wide crack in one
of the ribs, which was covered with wax, picked this substance away. He
poked his finger in the crack, and finding something soft, pulled it
out. It was a rough leather purse, inside of which was a coin, mouldy
with age and dark as the wood. Even after cleaning it with acid, it was
hard to read what was stamped on it; but, strange to say, the face of
the coin had left its impression on the leather, which had been covered
with wax. From this, though the metal of the coin was black, and the
mould thick on the coin, what they saw showed that it was a silver penny
of the age of Charlemagne, or the ninth century."
"Charlemagne is French, father, but we call him Karel de Groot, or
Charles the Great."
"Yes, my son. Don't you hear Karel's Klok (the curfew) sounding? 'Tis
time for little folks to go to bed."
THE GOLDEN HELMET
For centuries, more than can be counted on the fingers of both hands,
the maidens and mothers of Friesland have worn a helmet of gold covering
the crown and back of their heads, and with golden rosettes at each ear.
It marks the Frisian girl or woman. She is thus known by this head-dress
as belonging to a glorious country, that has never been conquered and is
proudly called Free Frisia. It is a relic of the age of gold, when this
precious metal was used in a thousand forms, not seen to-day.
Of how and why the golden helmet is worn, this is the story:
In days gone by, when forests covered the land and bears and wolves were
plentiful, there were no churches in Friesland. The people were pagans
and all worshipped Woden, whom the Frisians called Fos-i-te'. Certain
trees were sacred to him. When a baby was ill, or grown people had a
disease, which medicine could not help, they laid the sick one at the
foot of the holy tree, hoping for health soon to come. But, should the
patient die under the tree, then the sorrowful friends were made glad,
if the leaves of the tree fell upon the corpse. It was death to any
person who touched the sacred tree with an axe, or made kindling wood,
even of its branches.
Now among the wild people of the north, who ate acorns and were clothed
in the skins of animals, there came, from the Christian lands of the
south, a singer with his harp. Invited to the royal court, he sang sweet
songs. To these the king's daughter listened with delight, until the
tears, first of sorrow and then of joy, rolled down her lovely cheeks.
This maiden was the pride of her father, because of her sweet temper and
willing spirit, while all the people boasted of her beauty. Her eyes
were of the color of a sky without clouds. No spring flower could equal
the pink and rose in her cheeks. Her lips were like the red coral, which
the ship men brought from distant shores. Her long tresses rivalled gold
in their glory. And, because her father worshipped Fos-i-tι', the god of
justice, and his daughter was always so fair to all her playmates, he,
in his pride of her, gave her the name Fos-te-dν'-na, that is, the
darling of Fos-i-tι', or the Lady of Justice.
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