Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/7



was, it was not: there was once a king who was very fond of hunting wild animals in the woods. And so it happened one day that he pushed too far forward after a stag and lost his way. He was alone, alone: night came on, and the king was glad to find a cottage at the forest toll-house. The woodcutter lived there. The king says: “Perhaps he would kindly shew him the way out of the wood, and that he would pay him well.” “I would gladly go with you,” said the woodcutter; “but see here, my wife is just now expectant: I cannot leave her. And, then, where would you be at night? Sleep on the hay in the loft, and in the morning I will shew you the way.” Soon after this a little son was born to the woodcutter. The king lay in the loft, and could not get to sleep. About midnight he noticed down below, in the living-room, a kind of light. He peeps through a chink in the ceiling, and this is what he sees. The woodcutter was asleep; his wife lay as if in a trance; and beside the babe stood three old grandmothers, all in white, each with a lighted candle in her hand. The first one says: “I grant to this boy that he shall run into great dangers.” The second says: “And I grant him happily to extricate himself from them all and to live long.” And the third says: “And I grant him for a wife the little daughter that has to-day been born to this king who lies up aloft here on the hay.” On this the grandmothers extinguished the candles and all was again quiet. They were the Fates.

The king remained as though a sword had been thrust into his breast. He did not sleep till morning, but thought over what to do and how, so that what he had heard might not happen. When the morning broke, the child began to cry. The woodcutter rose; and he sees that in the meantime his wife had slept away into eternity. “Ah! my poor little orphan!” he cried, lamenting; “what am I now to do with thee?” “Give me this infant,” says the king. “I will take care of it, that it shall be well with it. And to thee I will give so much money that until the day of thy death thou wilt never more have to burn wood.” The woodcutter was glad at this, and