30
Mother Elderberry
Once upon a time there was a little boy who had caught cold. He had got his feet wet, and no one could imagine how, for the weather had been dry for days. His mother undressed him and put him to bed; then she took out the teapot to make elderberry tea, for that is such a good remedy for colds. Just at that moment the pleasant old man who had his lodgings on the top floor entered. He lived completely alone, for he had neither wife nor children of his own, but he was very fond of other people’s children and knew how to tell the most amusing fairy tales and stories.
“Now drink your tea like a good boy,” said the mother, “and maybe you will be told a story.”
“If I only knew one that he hasn’t heard already,” said the old man, and nodded kindly. “But tell me, how did the little fellow get his feet wet?”
“Where, indeed!” The mother shook her head. “That is a mystery.”
“Are you going to tell me a story?” asked the boy.
“Maybe, if you can tell me exactly how deep the ditch is that runs along the lane next to your school; I would rather like to know that.”
“In the deepest place, the water is halfway up to the top of my boots,” answered the boy.
“That solves the mystery of the wet feet,” said the old gentleman. “Now I should tell you a story, but I can’t remember any that you haven’t heard.”
“You can make one up. Mother says that anything you touch becomes a fairy tale.”
“No, that kind of story or fairy tale is not worth much; it is not like the real ones who come knocking on my forehead and say: ‘Here I am, let me in.’ ”
“Won’t one come knocking soon?” asked the boy. And his mother laughed as she put the elderberries in the teapot and poured boiling water on them.
“Please tell me a story! Please!” begged the boy.
“A fairy tale only comes when it wants to, for fairy tales and stories are so highborn that they won’t obey anyone, not even kings … Stop!” he cried suddenly, and held up his forefinger. “There it is! Be careful. It is in the teapot.”
The boy looked at the teapot. Slowly the lid lifted; up out of the top of the pot came fresh elderberry branches and from them hung clusters of white flowers. Now they were coming out of the spout as well. They grew and grew until they became a full-grown elderberry tree whose limbs crossed his bed and pushed aside the curtains. It was a grand tree! And how beautifully it smelled!
In the middle of the tree sat an old woman. She wore a dress that was as green as the elder leaves and had a pattern of white elder flowers. It was hard to tell whether her dress was made of cloth or out of real flowers and leaves. The old woman smiled kindly down at the boy.
“What is her name?” the lad asked.
“The Greeks and the Romans thought she was a wood nymph and called her dryad. Down in the ‘new cottages’—which aren’t very new, being three hundred years old—the old sailors who live there call her Mother Elderberry,” the old man explained. “Now keep an eye on her. I shall tell you a story, while you look at the beautiful elder tree.
“It takes place in the ‘new cottages.’ Down in one of those tiny, narrow yards that the old sailors call their gardens, there grew a lovely elder tree, just like the one you are looking at. One sunny afternoon an old couple were sitting in its shade. He was an old, retired sailor, and she was a very old woman, who was his wife. They were so old that they had great-grandchildren and soon would celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. But, alas! they could not remember the date. Mother Elderberry sat up in her tree looking very pleased with herself. ‘I know which day it is,’ she said.
“The old couple hadn’t heard her. They were talking about the old times, when they had been young.
“ ‘Can you remember,’ began the old seaman, ‘when we were children and played in this very yard, how we used to stick twigs in the earth and make believe we were making a garden?’
“ ‘Yes, I remember,’ said his wife. ‘We watered them and one of them was an elder branch and it struck roots and began to grow. And now it is such a big tree that we two old souls can sit in its shade.’
“ ‘Yes,’ agreed the old sailor. ‘Over there in the corner of the yard there used to stand an old tub, filled with water; that was the ocean my ships sailed on. I had carved them myself with my own knife. But it didn’t take long before I walked the deck of a real ship, did it?’
“ ‘No, but first we went to school,’ the old woman smiled. ‘And then we were confirmed and we both cried in church that day. In the afternoon we walked hand in hand up to the top of the Round Tower and looked out over the world. Later, we trudged all the way out to the Royal Gardens in Frederiksberg; there we saw the king and queen being rowed in their beautiful boat through the canals of the park.’
“ ‘Rougher voyages than that were to be my lot. Remember how long I was to be away; it was not months but years.’
“ ‘And I cried.’ Again the old woman smiled. ‘I thought for sure that you were dead and I would never see you again. I thought you were drowned and were lying deep down, under the dark waves. Many a night I got out of my warm bed to look at the weather vane to see if the wind had changed; it changed often enough but still you didn’t come home. I remember one day—oh, what terrible weather we had; it was pouring!—I had heard the garbage wagon rumbling down the street and I came running down from the kitchen with the garbage pail. I was a servant then. I stood for a moment in the open door to look at the rain, and the mailman came and gave me a letter. It was from you. I tore it open and read it right through. I was so happy that I both laughed and cried. You wrote that you were in the warm countries where coffee grows.—How lovely it must be there!—You described it all so well that I feel as if I had been there.… There I stood with the garbage pail in my hand, while the rain streamed down, when all at once I felt an arm around my waist—’
“ ‘Yes, and you gave that poor fellow such a box on the ears that it could be heard all the way down the street.’
“ ‘How could I have known it was you! You had come home as fast as your letter. Oh, how handsome you were, and that you are still! You had a long yellow silk handkerchief sticking out of your pocket and a shiny hat on your head. You looked so fine. But what a day it was, the street looked like a river.’
“ ‘And then we got married,’ laughed the old man. ‘Do you remember? Then came the children: first the boy, then Marie, Niels, Peter, and Hans Christian.’
“ ‘And they all turned out so well. They are liked and respected by everyone.’
“ ‘And their children, in turn, have got little ones now,’ said the old sailor, and nodded. ‘We have great-grandchildren who have spirit. You know, I think it was about this time of the year that we got married.’
“ ‘Yes, this very day is your golden wedding day,’ said Mother Elderberry, and put her head between the old man and his wife. They thought she was a neighbor who had stuck her head in over the fence.
“They looked at each other; and each reached out for the other’s hand. A few minutes later their children and grandchildren came to congratulate them, for they knew that it was the old couple’s fiftieth wedding anniversary and had been there earlier that day; but the old couple had forgotten their visit, while they could recall everything that had happened half of a century ago.
“The scent of the elder flowers was heavy; the sun was just setting, and its glow gave the old man and his wife red cheeks. Their youngest grandchild danced around them happily. ‘Tonight we are going to have a feast and eat roast potatoes.’ That was his favorite food.
“Old Mother Elderberry nodded and shouted, ‘Hurrah!’ with everyone else.”
“But that was no fairy tale,” complained the little boy.
“That is your opinion,” said the kind old man who had told the story. “Let us ask Mother Elderberry.”
“The child is right, it was no fairy tale,” said Mother Elderberry. “But now it comes, for
out of reality are our tales of imagination fashioned. If this were not true, then my elder tree could not have grown out of the teapot.”
Mother Elderberry lifted the boy in her arms and pressed him to her breast. The flowering branches of the elder tree enfolded them. Now they were in an arbor and it was flying through the air with them inside it. It was a most delightful feeling. All at once Mother Elderberry changed into a young girl. She still had on her green dress with the pattern of white elder flowers, but there was a live flower pinned to her breast and around her curly golden hair there was a wreath of elder flowers. She and the boy kissed each other; and then they were one in age and desires.
Hand in hand, they left the arbor. On the green lawn lay his father’s cane, tethered to a stick; for, to the children the cane was a horse. And when they mounted it to gallop around the garden, it had both a head and a flowing black mane.
“Now we shall ride for miles and miles!” shouted the boy. “We shall ride all the way to the castle we visited last year.”
They rode round and round the garden. The little girl, who we know was none other than Mother Elderberry, said to the boy, “Now we are out in the country. Look, that’s a farmer’s house. See that wall with the big lump, protruding from the wall, like a giant egg, that’s the oven for baking bread. In the shade of the elder tree nearby, you can see a flock of hens scratching the earth for worms. Look at the cock. See how he swaggers! … Now we are passing the church. It is built on a hill; near it are two ancient oak trees; one of them is wizened.… Now we are at the blacksmith’s shop. The red fire glows. The man is naked to the waist. See his muscles as he lifts his hammer.… The sparks are flying all about him.… Away we go to the castle!”
Everything the little girl, who was riding behind him on the stick, described, the little boy saw; and yet they had only ridden around the lawn. Later they played on the gravel path and made a little garden of their own, and the girl took the elder flowers from the wreath in her hair and planted them. They grew just as the branch had, which the old seaman and his wife had planted; and they walked, hand in hand, just as the old people had done when they were children. But they didn’t climb up the Round Tower or go out to the Royal Gardens of Frederiksberg. No, the little girl put her arm around the boy’s waist and away they flew all around Denmark.
Spring changed into summer; soon it was harvest; and then the white winter came. A thousand pictures were mirrored in the little boy’s eyes and heart, while the little girl repeated: “This you shall never forget!”
During their flight the sweet scent of elder flowers was all about them. The boy smelled only faintly the perfume of the roses and the fragrance of the fresh beech branches, for the elder flower bloomed in the girl’s heart, and the boy never strayed from her.
“How beautiful spring is here!” she said; and they were standing in the midst of the tender green beech forest. At their feet grew the woodruff like a green carpet; and the fragile anemones, with their pale pink petals, were everywhere.
“Oh, I wish it were always spring!” exclaimed the little boy.
“How beautiful summer is here!” she said. Now they were flying past an old castle. Its red brick walls reflected in the water of the moat, where white swans made ripples in the mirror-like surface. The great white birds were looking at the long cool avenue of trees. The wind made waves in the field of grain as if it were a sea. In the ditches along the roads, yellow and red flowers bloomed; and the stone hedges were covered with wild hops and flowering bindweed. In the evening the pale moon rose. Down in the meadow the scent of newly cut hay filled the air. “This you will never forget.”
“How beautiful autumn is here!” said the little girl; and the sky suddenly seemed twice as high and twice as blue. The woods had turned yellow, brown, and red, and they heard the barking of the hunting dogs. Flocks of screeching birds flew above the blackberry-covered stones of the Viking graves. The sea had turned almost black, and the sails appeared whiter against the dark color of the water. Down in the barn old women and young girls and children were busy picking the hops, dumping them into large vats. The young people sang the songs of the day, but the old women told stories of trolls and gnomes. What could be pleasanter?
“How beautiful winter is here!” said the little girl; and the trees were decked in hoarfrost and looked like a coral forest. Snow crunched under the children’s boots and sounded as if they were wearing new shoes. At night shooting stars fell from the dark heavens. Christmas trees were lit and gifts exchanged. Someone was playing the violin; there was dancing in the farmer’s living room, and from the kitchen came platters full of apple fritters that were refilled as soon as they were eaten. Then even the poorest child could say: “It is lovely in winter!”
Yes, it was truly beautiful. The little girl showed him the whole country of Denmark; and everywhere they went there was the smell of elder flowers; and there flew the flag with a white cross on the red background, the same one that flew from the mast of the ship on which the old sailor had sailed.
The boy became a young man. Now he was ready to journey out into the wide world: far, far away to the warm countries, where coffee grows. When they parted the little girl took the elder flower from her bosom and gave it to him. He put it between two of the pages of his hymnbook, and far from home, when he took down the book, it would always open to the pages where the elder flower was. The more he gazed at the dry, pressed flower, the more alive and fresh it became. He smelled the perfume of the Danish forest, and among the green branches he saw the face of the little girl peeking out at him and whispering: “Oh, it is beautiful here in spring, in summer, in autumn, and in winter.” And his mind would paint a hundred pictures of all that he had seen.
Many years went by, the young man became an old man who sat underneath the elder tree with his wife. They held each other’s hands, as the great-grandfather and great-grandmother from the “new cottages” had. They talked of bygone times and how it soon would be their golden anniversary.
The little girl with the big blue eyes and the wreath of elder blossoms in her hair sat up in the tree and nodded kindly down at them. “Today is your golden wedding day,” she declared, and took two elderberry flowers from her wreath and kissed them. First they shone like silver and then like gold; she put one on each of the old couple’s heads and they became golden crowns. The old man and the old woman sat like a king and queen under the fragrant elder tree. The old man told his wife the story of Mother Elderberry as it had been told to him when he was a little boy. And they both realized that much of the story could have been about themselves, and that was the part they liked best.
“Well,” said the little girl in the tree, “some people call me Mother Elderberry; others call me the dryad; but my real name is memory. I sit in the tree that grows and grows; I can remember everything and therefore I can tell stories. Now let me see, do you still have your flower?”
The old man opened his hymnbook and there lay the elder flower, as fresh as if it had just been put there. Memory nodded and the setting sun shone on the heads of the two old people who were wearing golden crowns. They closed their eyes and then … Well, then the fairy tale is over.
The little boy lay in his bed; he didn’t quite know whether he had dreamed the last part of the story or whether it had been told to him. The teapot stood on the table, but no elder tree was growing out of it. And the old man who had told him the story was about to go out through the door; it closed, and he was gone.
“Mother, it was wonderful,” said the little boy. “I have been in the warm countries.”
“I will believe that,” laughed his mother. “If one drinks two big cups of elder tea, it is no wonder!” Then she tucked the blankets around him so he wouldn’t be cold. “I think you fell asleep while we were arguing about whether the story was a proper fairy tale or not.”
“And where is Mother Elderberry?” asked the boy.
“She is in the teapot,” answered the mother, “and there she
can stay.”
31
The Darning Needle
Once upon a time there was a darning needle who was so refined that she was convinced she was a sewing needle.
“Be careful! Watch what you are holding!” she shouted to the fingers who had picked her up. “I am so fine and thin that if I fall on the floor you will never be able to find me again.”
“Don’t overdo it,” snarled the fingers, and squeezed her around the waist.
“Look, I am traveling with a retinue,” said the needle. She was referring to the thread that trailed behind her but wasn’t knotted. The fingers steered the needle toward the cook’s slippers; the leather had split and had to be sewn.
“This is vulgar work,” complained the darning needle. “I can’t get through it. I shall break! I shall break!” And then she broke. “Didn’t I tell you I was too fine?” she whined.
Had it been up to the fingers, then the darning needle would have been thrown away; but they had to mind the cook, so they dipped the needle in hot sealing wax and stuck it into the cook’s blouse.
“Now I have become a brooch,” exclaimed the darning needle. “I have always felt that I was born to be something better. When you are something, you always become something.” Then she laughed inside herself; for you cannot see from the outside when a needle is laughing. There she sat as proudly as if she were looking out at the world from a seat in a golden carriage.
“May I take the liberty of asking you whether you are made of gold?” The darning needle was talking to her neighbor, a pin. “You look very handsome, and you have a head, even though it is small. Take my advice and let it grow a little bigger; not everyone can be so fortunate as to be dipped in sealing wax.” The darning needle drew herself up a little too proudly; for she fell out of the blouse and down into the sink, at exactly the moment when the cook was rinsing it out.
“Here we go, traveling!” exclaimed the darning needle. “I hope I won’t get lost.” But she did get lost.