Page:Grimm's Fairy Tales.djvu/98

80 That very evening, the woodman's daughter Roseken, and her playfellow Martin, ran out to have a game of hide-and-seek in the valley. "Where can he be hidden?" said she; "he must have gone towards the grove; perhaps he is behind the old oak tree": and down she ran to look. Just then she spied a little dog that jumped and frisked round her, and wagged his tail, and led her on towards the grove. Then he ran into it, and she soon jumped up the bank by the side of the old oak to look for him; but was overjoyed to see a beautiful meadow, where flowers and shrubs of every kind grew upon turf of the softest green; gay butterflies flew about; the birds sang sweetly; and what was strangest, the prettiest little children sported about like fairies on all sides; some twining the flowers, and others dancing in rings upon the smooth turf beneath the trees. In the midst of the grove, instead of the hovels of which Roseken had heard, she could see a palace, that dazzled her eyes with its brightness.

For a while she gazed on the fairy scene, till at last one of the little dancers ran up to her, and said, "And so, pretty Roseken, you are come at last to see us? We have often seen you play about, and wished to have you with us." Then she plucked some of the fruit that grew near, and Roseken at the first taste forgot her home, and wished only to see and know more of her fairy friends. So she jumped down from the bank and joined the merry dance.

Then they led her about with them, and showed her all their sports. One while they danced by moonlight on the primrose banks, at another time they skipped from bough to bough, among the trees that hung over the cooling streams, for they moved as lightly and easily