Fleaz

Struwwelpeter

2006-02-04T01:09:00.000-08:00

Struwwelpeter

by Heinrich Hoffmann

Struwwelpeter

See Slovenly Peter! Here he stands,
With his dirty hair and hands.
See! his nails are never cut;
They are grim'd as black as soot;
No water for many weeks,
Has been near his cheeks;
And the sloven, I declare,
Not once this year has combed his hair!
Anything to me is sweeter
Than to see shock-headed Peter.

The Story of Cruel Frederick

This Frederick! this Frederick!
A naughty, wicked boy was he;
He caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings;
He kill'd the birds, and broke the chairs,
And throw the kitten down the stairs;
And oh! far worse and worse,
He whipp'd his good and gentle nurse!

The trough was full, and faithful Tray
Came out to drink one sultry day;
He wagg'd his tail, and wet his lip,
When cruel Fred snatch'd up a whip,
And whipp'd poor Tray till he was sore,
And kick'd and whipp'd him more and more;

At this, good Tray grow very red,
And growl'd and bit him till he bled;
Then you should only have been by,
To see how Fred did scream and cry!

So Frederick had to go to bed;
His leg was very sore and red!
The Doctor came and shook his head,
And made a very great to-do,
And gave him bitter physic too. But good dog Tray is happy now;
He has no time to say "bow-wow!"
He seats himself in Frederick's chair,
And laughs to see the nice things there:
The soup he swallows, sup by sup,-
And eats the pies and puddings up.

The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches

Mamma and Nurse went out one day,
And left Pauline alone at play;
Around the room she gayly sprung,
Clapp'd her hands, and danced, and sung.,
Now, on the table close at hand,
A box of matches chanced to stand,
And kind Mamma and Nurse had told her,
That if she touched them they would scold her;
But Pauline said, "Oh, what a pity!
For, when they burn, it is so pretty;
They crackle so, and spit, and flame;
And Mamma often burns the same.
I'll just light a match or two
As I have often seen my mother do."

When Minz and Maunz, the pussy-cats, heard this
They held up their paws and began to hiss. -
"Meow!!" they said, "me-ow, me-o!
You'll burn to death, if you do so,
Your parents have forbidden you, you know."

But Pauline would not take advice,
She lit a match, it was so nice!
It crackled so, it burned so clear,-
Exactly like the picture here.
She jumped for joy and ran about,
And was too pleased to put it out.

When Minz and Maunz, the little cats, saw this,
They said, "Oh, naughty, naughty Miss!""
And stretched their claws,
And raised their paws;
"Tis very, very wrong, you know;
Me-ow, me-o, me-ow, me-o!
You will be burnt if you do so,
our mother has forbidden you, you know. "

Now see! oh! see, what a dreadful thing
The fire has caught her apron-string;
Her apron burns, her arms, her hair;
She burns all over, everywhere.

Then how the pussy-cats did mew
What else, poor pussies, could they do?
They screamed for help, 'twas all in vain,
I So then, they said, "We'll scream again.
Make haste, make haste! me-ow! me-o!
She'll burn to death,- we told her so."

So she was burnt with all her clothes,
And arms and hands, and eyes and nose;
Till she had nothing more to lose
Except her little scarlet shoes;
And nothing else but these was found
Among her ashes on the ground.

And when hen the good cats sat beside
The smoking ashes, how they cried!
"Me-ow me-o! ! Me-ow, me-oo! !
What will Mamma and Nursy do?"
Their tears ran down their cheeks so fast.
They made a little pond at last.

The Story of the Inky Boys

As he had often done before,
The woolly-headed black-a-moor
One nice fine summer's day went out
To see the shops and walk about;
And as he found it hot, poor fellow,
He took with him his green umbrella
Then Edward, little noisy wag,
Ran out and laugh'd, and waved his flag,
And William came in jacket trim,
And brought his woollen hoop with him;
And Caspar, too, snatch'd up his toys
And joined the other naughty boys;
So one and all set up a roar,
And laughed and hooted more and more,
And kept on singing,--only think!--
"Ohl Blacky, you're as black as ink"

Now Saint Nicholas lieved close by,--
So tall he almost touched the sky;
He had a mighty inkstand too,
In which a great goose feather grew;
He call'd out in an angry tone,
"Boys, leave the black-a-moor alone!
For if he tries with all his might,
He cannot change from black to white."
But ah! they did not mind a bit
What Saint Nicholas said of it;
But went on laughing, as before,
And hooting at the black-a-moor.

Then Saint Nicholas foams with rage:
Look at him on this very page!
He seizes Caspar, seizes Ned,
Takes William by his little head;
And they may scream, and kick, and call,
But into the ink he dips them all;
Into the inkstand, one, two, three,
Till they are black, as black can be;
Turn over now and you shall see.

See, there they are, and there they run!
The black-a-moor enjoys the fun.
They have been made as black as crows,
Quite black all over, eyes and nose,
And legs, and arms, and heads, and toes.
And trowsers, pinafores, and toys,--
The silly little inky boys!
Because they set up such a roar,
And teas'd the harmless black-a-moor.

The Story of the Wild Huntsman

This is the Wild Huntsman that shoots the hares
With the grass-green coat he always wears:
With game-bag, powder-horn and gun,
He's going out to have some fun.
He finds it hard, without a pair
Of spectacles, to shoot the hare:
He put his spectacles upon his nose, and said,
"Now I will shoot the hares, and kill them dead."

The hare sits snug in leaves and grass
And laughs to see the green man pass.

Now, as the sun grew very hot
And he a heavy gun had got,
He lay down underneath a tree
And went to sleep, as you may see.
And, while he slept like any top,
The little hare came, hop, hop, hop,�
Took gun and spectacles, and then
Softly on tiptoe went off again.

The green man wakes, and sees her place
The spectacles upon her face.
She pointed the gun at the hunter's heart,
Who jumped up at once with a start.
He cries, and screams, and runs away,
"Help me, good people, help! I pray."

At last he stumbled at the well
Head over ears, and in he fell.
The hare stopp'd short, took aim, and hark!
Bang went the gun! - she miss'd her mark!

The poor man's wife was drinking up
Her coffee in her coffee-cup;
The gun shot Cup and saucer through;
"O dear!" cried she, "what shall I do?"
Hiding, close by the cottage there,
Was the hare's own child, the little hare;
When he heard the shot, he quickly arose,
And while he stood upon his toes,
The coffee fell and burn'd his nose;
"O dear," he cried, "what burns me so?"
And held up the spoon with his little toe.

The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb

One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."

Mamma had scarcely turn'd her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.

The Story of Augustus who not have any Soup

Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had;
And everybody saw with joy
The plump and hearty healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter's day,
He threw away the spoon and screamed:
"O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup to-day:
I will not, will not eat my soup!
I will not eat it, no!"

Next day! now look, the picture shows
How lank and lean Augustus grows!
Yet, though he feels so weak and ill,
The naughty fellow cries out still�
"Not any soup for me, I say!
O take the nasty soup away!
I will not, will not eat my soup!
I will not eat it, no!"

The third day comes. O what a sin!
To make himself so pale and thin.
Yet, when the-soup is put on table,
He screams, as loud as he is able�
"Not any soup for me, I say!
O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup to-day!"

Look at him, now the fourth day's come!
He scarce outweighs a sugar-plum;

He's like a little bit of thread;
And on the fifth day he was-dead.

The Story of Fidgety Philip

"Let me see if Philip can
Be a little gentleman;
Let me see if he is able
To sit still for once at table."
Thus spoke, in earnest tone,
The father to his son;
And the mother looked very grave
To see Philip so misbehave.
But Philip he did not mind
His father who was so kind.
He wriggled
And giggled,
And then, I declare,
Swung backward and forward
And tilted his chair,
Just like any rocking horse;-
"Philip! I am getting cross!"

See the naughty, restless child,
Growing still more rude and wild ,
Till his chair falls over quite.
Philip screams with all his might,
Catches at the cloth, but then
That makes matters worse again.
Down upon the ground they fall,
Glasses, bread, knives forks and all.
How Mamma did fret and frown,
When she saw them tumbling down!
And Papa made such a face!
Philip is in sad disgrace.

Where is Philip? Where is he?
Fairly cover'd up, you see!
Cloth and ll are lying on him;
He has pull'd down all upon him!
What a terrible to-do!
Dishes, glasses, snapt in two!
Here a knife, and ther fork!
Philip, this is naughty work.
Table all so bare, and ah!
Poor Papa and poor Mamma
Look quite cross, and wonder how
They shall make their dinner now.

The Story of Johnny Look-in-the-Air

As he trudg'd along to school,
It was always Johnny's rule
To be looking at the sky
And the clouds that floated by;
But what just before him lay,
In his way,
Johnny never thought about;
So that every one cried out�
"Look at little Johnny there,
Little Johnny Head-In-Air!"

Running just in Johnny's way,
Came a little dog one day;
Johnny's eyes were still astray
Up on high,
In the sky;
And he never heard them cry -
"Johnny, mind, the dog is nigh!"
What happens now?
Bump!
Dump I
Down they fell, with such a thump,
Dog and Johnnv in a lump!
They almost broke their bones
So hard they tumbled on the stones.

Once, with head as high as ever,
Johnny walked beside the river.
Johnny watch'd the swallows trying
Which was cleverest at flying.
Oh! what fun!
Johnny watch'd the bright round sun
Going in and coming out;
This was all he thought about.
So he strode on, only think!
To the river's very brink,
Where the bank was high and steep,
And the water very deep;

And the fishes, in a row,
Stared to see him coming so.

One step more! Oh! sad to tell!
Headlong in poor Johnny fell.

The three little fishes, in dismay,
Wagged their tails and swam away.

There lay Johnny on his face;
With his nice red writing-case;
But, as they were passing by,,
Two strong men had heard him cry;
And, with sticks, these two strong men
Hook'd poor Johnny out again.

The Story of Flying Robert

When the rain comes tumbling down
In the country or the town,
All good little girls and boys
Stay at home and mind their toys.
Robert thought, - "No, when it pours,
It is better out of doors."
Rain it did, and in a minute
Bob was in it.
Here you see him, silly fellow,
Underneath his red umbrella.

What a wind! Oh! how it whistles
Through the trees and flow'rs and thistles.
It has caught his red umbrella;
Now look at him, silly fellow,
Up he flies
To the skies.
No one heard his screams and cries;
Through the clouds the rude wind bore him,
And his hat flew on before him.

Teen Runaways: Warning Signs & Advice

2006-02-04T01:02:00.000-08:00

Motivations of a Runaway

*

To avoid an emotional experience or consequence that they are expecting in some future encounter or situation.
*

To escape a recurrent or ongoing unpleasant, painful or difficult experience in their life.
*

To avoid the loss of activities, relationships or friendships that are considered important or worthwhile.
*

To be with others people who are supportive, encouraging and active.
*

To be with others or in places that are distractions from other problems in their life.
*

To change or stop what they are doing or about to do.

Warning Signs of a Potential Runaway.

*

Attempts to communicate result in arguments, raised voices, interruptions, name calling, hurt feelings and failure to reach an acceptable agreement.
*

The child has a network of friends who are largely unsupervised, oppositional, defiant, involved with drugs and other antisocial behaviors.
*

An increasing pattern of impulsive, irrational and emotionally abusive behavior by either the parent(s) or teenager.

Communication That Helps Prevent Runaways

The following is a brief list of suggestions that can help reduce the risk of a runaway. Keep in mind that these are only suggestions than may help. If the risk is high, and your relationship is extremely poor, including the level of trust, then these suggestions may not help. Obtain the support and advice of a qualified profession if you feel there is a risk that your child may run away.

*

Never dare your child to run away because you think they may not.
*

Never use sarcasm or a negative attitude that demonstrates that you do not respect your teenager
*

Never raise your voice or yell - especially when your teenager is raising their voice or yelling.
*

Stay calm and quiet, make eye contact, and don't respond if your child is angry, shouting or in a rage. Waite until they are calm.
*

Never interrupt your teenager when they are talking or trying to explain something - even if you disagree. Waite until they are done.
*

Remind yourself that simply listening and telling your child that you understand does not mean you will agree when they are finished, nor does it mean you will do what they seem to want.
*

Never call you teenager names or label them with words like liar, a thief, a brat, a punk, childish, immature, untrustworthy, selfish, cruel, unkind, stupid, etc... These words will not help. Your child will only begin to think of you in negative terms and may even start calling you worse names.
*

Talk less and use fewer words than your teenagers.
*

Tell you teenager that you understand what they are saying. Say "I understand." And if you don't understand, say "I'm not sure I understand, ...tell me again."
*

When you don't agree and you are certain that you understand your teenager's point of view (and your teenager believes you understand) tell your teenager. "I think I understand, but I don't agree with you. I want to think we can understand each other, but we don't have to agree."
*

Remember you can also agree with your child, but you don't have to let them do whatever they want. For instance, you might agree that their is be no significant difference between some teenagers who are 17 years old and some people who are 21 years old, but that does not mean you will allow teenagers to consume alcohol at a party at your house.
*

Never explain yourself or argue if your child expects you to justify the fact that you do not agree.
*

When your teenager stops talking, ask "Is there anything else you want to tell me."
*

If you get overwhelmed or upset, tell your child "I'm overwhelmed and a little upset. I need a break and a chance to calm down and think about this." Then tell them you want a 20 minute (or so) break and then you will talk to them again. Be sure to take a break.
*

Get professional advice from a qualified mental health professional if your child is demanding, threatening or acting as if they should be allowed to do whatever they want.
*

When two parents are speaking with a teenagers, it is important to take turns, but be careful to let your teenagers speak as much as BOTH parents speak. Both parents should talk equally and use less words than their child.

Steps You Can Take That Will Help Reduce the Risk of a Runaway

*

Develop a Crisis Intervention plan for your teenager if the situation involves a crisis or recurrent crises.
*

Seek an evaluation and advice from a qualified mental health professional or crisis intervention specialist if your child may be self-harming, suicidal, destructive or violent.

* Review and familiarize yourself with the material on this web site that pertain to Crisis Intervention.

* Seek counseling or therapy for any emotional problems or difficulties associated with any angry, violent or suicidal behavior from a qualified mental health professional. Referral Information

* Evaluate any alcohol and other drug use and treat as recommended by a qualified professional. Alcohol and Other Drug Information

* Encourage a medical evaluation and treatment for any mental illness or other medical condition requiring medication or medical treatment.

* If appropriate, consider enrolling and participating in an educational or skills training group that will improve communication and interpersonal skills (e.g. parenting skills, communication, divorce adjustment, assertiveness training, conflict resolution, or strategies to diffuse angry, aggressive and violent behavior).

* Develop a plan that will minimize and limit all communication that usually leads to conflict, aggression or violence and take steps to resolve problems calmly. Establish a plan that supports communication.

* If there is abuse or neglect, seek advice and further investigation from a qualified mental health profession, law enforcement or an attorney who has experience dealing with abuse and neglect issues. An attorney can provide absolute confidentiality. Law enforcement and some mental health professionals cannot. Confidentiality Information.

2006-02-01T19:27:00.000-08:00

Idioms, Name Meanings & more

2006-02-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

at a rate of knots (British & Australian)

if someone does something at a rate of knots, they do it very quickly. She did her homework at a rate of knots so that she could go out with her friends.

See also: tie

tie the knot (informal)

to get married. When are you two going to tie the knot? She's planning to tie the knot with her German boyfriend next June. (often + with)

See also: tie

Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms © Cambridge University Press 1998

tie someone (up) in knots

to cause someone to become very confused or worried. They tied themselves up in knots over the seating arrangements for the party. The possibility of layoffs in Joe's department has tied him into knots.

See also: tie

tie the knot

to get married. She's planning to tie the knot with her German boyfriend next June.

a. A compact intersection of interlaced material, such as cord, ribbon, or rope.

b. A fastening made by tying together lengths of material, such as rope, in a prescribed way.

2. A decorative bow of ribbon, fabric, or braid.

3. A unifying bond, especially a marriage bond.

4. A tight cluster of persons or things: a knot of onlookers.

5. A feeling of tightness: a knot of fear in my stomach.

6. A complex problem.

a. A hard place or lump, especially on a tree, at a point from which a stem or branch grows.

b. The round, often darker cross section of such a lump as it appears on a piece of cut lumber. Also called node.

8. A protuberant growth or swelling in a tissue: a knot in a gland.

a. Nautical A division on a log line used to measure the speed of a ship.

b. Abbr. kn. or kt. A unit of speed, one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.85 kilometers (1.15 statute miles) per hour.

c. A distance of one nautical mile.

v. knot·ted, knot·ting, knots

v.tr.

1. To tie in or fasten with a knot or knots.

2. To snarl or entangle.

3. To cause to form a knot or knots.

v.intr.

1. To form a knot or knots.

2. To become snarled or entangled.

[Middle English, from Old English cnotta.]

Usage Note: In nautical usage knot is a unit of speed, not of distance, and has a built-in meaning of "per hour." Therefore, a ship would strictly be said to travel at ten knots (not ten knots per hour).

knot1

barrel and figure-eight knots

knot 2

Either of two migratory sandpipers (Calidris canutus or C. tenuirostris) that breed in Arctic regions.

[Middle English, of Scandinavian origin.]

ThesaurusLegend:

Synonyms

Related Words

Antonyms

Noun

knot - a tight cluster of people or things; "a small knot of women listened to his sermon"

bunch, clump, cluster, clustering - a grouping of a number of similar things; "a bunch of trees"; "a cluster of admirers"

knot - any of various fastenings formed by looping and tying a rope (or cord) upon itself or to another rope or to another object

barrel knot, blood knot - a knot used for tying fishing leaders together; the ends of the two leaders are wrapped around each other two or three times

bow, bowknot - a knot with two loops and loose ends; used to tie shoelaces

carrick bend - a knot used to connect the ends of two large ropes or hawsers

clove hitch - a knot used to fasten a line temporarily to a post or spar

fastening, holdfast, fastener, fixing - restraint that attaches to something or holds something in place

figure eight, figure of eight - a knot having the shape of the numeral 8; tied in a rope that has been passed through a hole or pulley and that prevents the rope from coming loose

fisherman's bend - a knot for tying a line to a spar or ring

fisherman's knot, true lover's knot, truelove knot - a knot for tying the ends of two lines together

Gordian knot - an intricate knot tied by Gordius, the king of Phrygia, and cut by the sword of Alexander the Great after he heard that whoever undid it would become ruler of Asia

half hitch - a knot used to fasten a rope temporarily to an object; usually tied double

hawser bend - a knot uniting the ends of two lines

hitch - a knot that can be undone by pulling against the strain that holds it

loop knot - any of various knots used to make a fixed loop in a rope

love knot, lover's knot - a stylized knot used as an emblem of love

overhand knot - a simple small knot (often used as part of other knots)

prolonge knot, sailor's breastplate - a knot in the rope used to drag a gun carriage

sheepshank - a knot for shortening a line

slipknot - a knot at the end of a cord or rope that can slip along the cord or rope around which it is made

square knot - a double knot made of two half hitches and used to join the ends of two cords

stopper knot - a knot that prevents a rope from passing through a hole

surgeon's knot - any of several knots used in tying stitches or ligatures

Turk's head - an ornamental knot that resembles a small turban

knot - a hard cross-grained round piece of wood in a board where a branch emerged; "the saw buckled when it hit a knot"

wood - the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees

plank, board - a stout length of sawn timber; made in a wide variety of sizes and used for many purposes

knot - something twisted and tight and swollen; "their muscles stood out in knots"; "the old man's fists were two great gnarls"; "his stomach was in knots"

gnarl

distorted shape, distortion - a shape resulting from distortion

knot - a unit of length used in navigation; equivalent to the distance spanned by one minute of arc in latitude; 1,852 meters

air mile, international nautical mile, mile, naut mi, nautical mile, mi

nautical linear unit - a linear unit of distance used in navigation

knot - soft lump or unevenness in a yarn; either an imperfection or created by design

slub, burl

roughness - a texture that is not smooth but is irregular and uneven

knot - a sandpiper that breeds in the arctic and winters in the southern hemisphere

Calidris canutus, grayback

sandpiper - any of numerous usually small wading birds having a slender bill and piping call; closely related to the plovers

Calidris, genus Calidris - a genus of Scolopacidae

Verb

knot - make into knots; make knots out of; "She knotted der fingers"

create from raw material, create from raw stuff - make from scratch

macrame - make knotted patterns; "macrame a plant holder"

knot - tie or fasten into a knot; "knot the shoelaces"

tie, bind - fasten or secure with a rope, string, or cord; "They tied their victim to the chair"

knot - tangle or complicate; "a ravelled story"

ravel, tangle

interlace, intertwine, lace, twine, enlace, entwine - spin or twist together so as to form a cord; "intertwine the ribbons"; "Twine the threads into a rope"

unknot, unpick, unravel, unscramble, untangle - become or cause to become undone by separating the fibers or threads of; "the sweater unravelled"

Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tying+up+in+knots>

Dieter

The boy's name Dieter is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "army of the people." Popular in Germany.

For more information, see also related names Dedrick and Theodoric. Search for names similar to Dieter starting with Di-, Die-, Diet- or ending with -er, -ter, -eter, -ieter.

Mable

The girl's name Mabel is pronounced MAY-bel. It is of English origin, and its meaning is "lovable." Short form of Amabel (Latin) "lovable." Singer Mabel Mercer.

There are 13 variant forms for Mabel: Amabel, Amable, Amaybel, Amaybelle, Amayble, Mab, Mabelle, Mable, Maible, Maybel, Maybell, Maybelle and Mayble.

Search for names similar to Mabel starting with Ma-, Mab- or ending with -el, -bel, -abel.

Georgette

The girl's name Georgette is of French and Latin origin, and its meaning is "farmer." French form of George, used since the 1940s. A purposely wrinked fabric called georgette was named after its French creator. Author Georgette Heyer; socialite Georgette Mosbacher.

There are 4 variant forms for Georgette: Georgetta, Georjetta, Jorjetta and Jorjette.

Bernice

The girl's name Bernice is pronounced ber-NEECE. It is of Greek origin, and its meaning is "victory bringer." Contracted form of Berenice and from the same root as Veronica. A biblical name that first occurred in Britain in the 16th century. Binnie is the pet form.

There are 34 variant forms for Bernice: Barri, Barrie, Barry, Beranice, Beraniece, Beranyce, Berenice, Bereniece, Berenyce, Berneece, Bernelle, Bernetta, Bernette, Bernee, Berni, Bernicia, Bernie, Berniece, Bernisha, Berniss, Berny, Bernyce, Berri, Berrie, Berry, Binnie, Bunni, Bunnie, Bunny, Nixie, Veronica, Veronika, Veronike and Veronique.

gran·ny or gran·nie

n. pl. gran·nies

1. Informal A grandmother.

2. Informal A fussy person.

3. Chiefly Southern U.S. See midwife.

[Short for grandmother or grandam.]

ThesaurusLegend:

Noun

granny - the mother of your father or mother

gran, grandma, grandmother, grannie

grandparent - a parent of your father or mother

nan - your grandmother

granny - an old woman

old woman - a woman who is old

granny - a reef knot crossed the wrong way and therefore insecure

granny knot

flat knot, reef knot - a square knot used in a reef line

Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/grannies>

ba·bush·ka n.

A woman's head scarf, folded triangularly and worn tied under the chin.

[Russian, grandmother, diminutive of baba, old woman.]

babushka - a woman's headscarf folded into a triangle and tied under the chine; worn by Russian peasant women

headscarf - a kerchief worn over the head and tied under the chin

Pasted from <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/babushka>

Sock Puppets

A Sock is a wonderful thing. It can warm a foot, that's for sure. Better yet, it can become a zillion different critters. Sock puppets are easy to make.

All you need to do is start with a sock.

1. Put the sock on your hand so that your fingers and thumb are in the toe and the back of your wrist is in the heel.

2. To make room for your puppet's mouth, make a slit in the sock between your thumb and fingers.

3. Cut an oval 3 inches across and 5 inches long...make that 2 ovals, one of posterboard or milk bottle plastic-something semi rigid and one of fabric.

4. Glue the fabric oval to the posterboard (rigid) oval with white glue.

5. After the glue has begun to dry, fold them in half the short way.

6. Sew folded oval into your sock. Finally, your puppet can talk.

7. Now the fun begins! What your puppet becomes depends on you. Think eyes, hair, ears, hats, moustaches, beards, eyebrows, noses, collars, neckties, shirts and dresses.

These puppets are fun and extremely loveable. Try Them.

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Feminism and Fairy Tales

2006-02-01T19:16:00.000-08:00

Feminism and Fairy Tales

Karen E. Rowe

To examine selected popular folktales from the perspective of modern feminism is to revisualize those paradigms which shape our romantic expectations and to illuminate psychic ambiguities which often confound contemporary women. Portrayals of adolescent waiting and dreaming, patterns of double enchantment, and romanticizations of marriage contribute to the potency of fairy tales. Yet, such alluring fantasies gloss the heroine's inability to act self-assertively, total reliance on external rescues, willing bondage to father and prince, and her restriction to hearth and nursery. Although many readers discount obvious fantasy elements, they may still fall prey to more subtle paradigms through identification with the heroine. Thus, subconsciously women may transfer from fairy tales into real life cultural norms which exalt passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a female's cardinal virtues. In short, fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate.

Some day my prince will come.1 With mingled adolescent assurance and anxiety, young girls for many centuries have paid homage to the romantic visions aroused by this article of faith in fairy tale. Even in modern society where romance co-habits uncomfortably with women's liberation, barely disguised forms of fairy tales transmit romantic conventions through the medium of popular literature. Degenerate offspring of fairy tales, such as Real Romances, Secret Romances, Intimate Romances, and Daring Romances, capitalize on the allure of romance, but sell instead a grotesque composite of pornography and melodrama ("He Brought My Body to Peaks of Ecstasy on his Water-Bed.... Yet I Knew I Had to Leave Him for Another Lover").2 Traditional fairy tales fuse morality with romantic fantasy in order to portray cultural ideals for human relationships. In contrast, pulp romances strip the fantastic machinery and social sanctions to expose, then graphically exploit the implicit sexuality.

Chaster descendants of fairy tales, the "ladies fictions" of Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and McCalls, pass on homogenized redactions of romantic conventions. A 1974 version, "The Garlands of Fortune" proffers the predictable narrative, only a shadow away from folklore fantasies of princes: "She was a girl who didn't believe in luck, let alone miracles, or at least she didn't until that fabulous man came along".3 These "domestic fictions" reduce fairy tales to sentimental clichés, while they continue to glamorize a heroine's traditional yearning for romantic love which culminates in marriage. Distinguished from the pulp magazines' blatant degradation of romance into sexual titillation, women's magazines preserve moral strictures from fairy tales, even as they rationalize the fantastic events. They render diminished counterfeits of Victorian novels of sensibility and manners. More conscious imitators of commonplace nineteenth-century fictions and, thereby, of fairy tales, Victoria Holt, Mary Stewart, and Phyllis Whitney popularize the modern gothic romance. Tell-tale captions from Holt's Legend of the Seventh Virgin (1975) highlight the inherited elements: "It was the most exciting night of my life! Mellyora had wangled an invitation to the masked ball at the Abbas for me, Kerensa Carlee the servant girl!" and "Johnny St. Larnston danced with me out onto the terrace".4 Virginal dreams of elegant balls, adored princes, and romantic deliverance become captivatingly mysterious when complicated by concealed identities, hints of incest, hidden treasures, ancient curses, supernatural apparitions, and looming mansions. Unlike either sexually exploitative or domesticated romances, these tales of horror maintain historical distance, suppress sexuality, and adhere to rigid social hierarchies. They perpetuate, virtually intact, earlier gothic adaptations of fairy tale motifs.

The mass popularity of these fictions – erotic, ladies, and gothic – testifies to a pervasive fascination with fairy tale romance in literature not merely for children but for twentieth-century adults. Moreover, folklorists counter any casual dismissal of folktales as mere entertainment by arguing that they have always been one of culture's primary mechanisms for inculcating roles and behaviors.5 The ostensibly innocuous fantasies symbolically portray basic human problems and appropriate social prescriptions. These tales which glorify passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice as a heroine's cardinal virtues suggest that culture's very survival depends upon a woman's acceptance of roles which relegate her to motherhood and domesticity. Just how potently folklore contributes to cultural stability may be measured by the pressure exerted upon women to emulate fairy tale prototypes. Few women expect a literally "royal" marriage with Prince Charming; but, subconsciously at least, female readers assimilate more subtle cultural imperatives. They transfer from fairy tales into real life those fantasies which exalt acquiescence to male power and make marriage not simply one ideal, but the only estate toward which women should aspire. The idealizations, which reflect culture's approval, make the female's choice of marriage and maternity seem commendable, indeed predestined. In short, fairy tales are not just entertaining fantasies, but powerful transmitters of romantic myths which encourage women to internalize only aspirations deemed appropriate to our "real" sexual functions within a patriarchy.

As long as fairy tale paradigms accord closely with cultural norms, women can and have found in romantic fictions satisfying justifications for their conformity. But recent studies, such as Beauvoir's The Second Sex, Greer's The Female Eunuch, and Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, to mention only the forerunners, have exposed the historical conditions which subordinate women in all areas from the procreative to the political. With progressive suffrage and liberation movements of the twentieth century and radical redefinitions of sexual and social roles, women are challenging both previous mores and those fairy tales which inculcate romantic ideals. Although lingeringly attracted to fantasies (like Eve to the garden after the Fall), many modern women can no longer blindly accept the promise of connubial bliss with the prince. Indeed, fairy tale fantasies come to seem more deluding than problem-solving. "Romance" glosses over the heroine's impotence: she is unable to act independently or self-assertively; she relies on external agents for rescue; she binds herself first to the father and then the prince; she restricts her ambitions to hearth and nursery. Fairy tales, therefore, no longer provide mythic validations of desirable female behavior; instead, they seem more purely escapist or nostalgic, having lost their potency because of the widening gap between social practice and romantic idealization.

It is a sign of our conflicted modern times that popular romances nevertheless continue to imitate fairy tale prototypes, while concurrently novels, such as Doris Lessing's Martha Quest and A Proper Marriage, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, or Alix Kates Shulman's Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen portray disillusionments, if not forthright defiances of romantic conventions. An examination of a few popular folktales from the perspective of modern feminism not only reveals why romantic fantasy exerts such a powerful imaginative allure, but also illuminates how contemporary ambiguities cloud women's attitudes toward men and marriage.

Among the classic English tales of romance, "Cinderella", "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", "Snow-Drop", "The Tale of the Kind and the Unkind Girls", "Beauty and the Beast", and "The Frog-Prince" focus on the crucial period of adolescence, dramatizing archetypal female dilemmas and socially acceptable resolutions.6 Confronted by the trauma of blossoming sexuality, for instance, the young girl subliminally responds to fairy tale projections of adolescent conflicts.7 She often achieves comforting release from anxieties by subconsciously perceiving in symbolic tales the commonness of her existential dilemma. Moreover, the equal-handed justice and optimistic endings instill confidence that obstacles can be conquered as she progresses from childhood to maturity. More than alleviating psychic fears associated with the rite of passage, however, tales also prescribe approved cultural paradigms which ease the female's assimilation into the adult community.8

The stepmother and bad fairy, who invariably appear odious, embody the major obstacles against this passage to womanhood. Not simply dramatic and moral antagonists to the youthful heroine, they personify predatory female sexuality and the adolescent's negative feelings toward her mother. In PerrauIt's version of "Cinderella" (AT 510), persecution of the adolescent stems directly from the father's remarriage and the new stepmother's sexual jealousies.9 Because "she could not bear the good qualities of this pretty girl; and the less, because they made her own daughters so much the more hated and despised", Cinderella's stepmother displays her "ill humour" by employing the child "in the meanest work of the house" (p.123). Similarly proud and vain, Snow-Drop's stepmother in Grimm's recounting plots against the seven-year-old child who "was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself" (p.177).10 Although fairy tales carefully displace animosities onto a substitute figure, they in part recreate the fears of a menopausal mother. For the aging stepmother, the young girl's maturation signals her own waning sexual attractiveness and control. In retaliation they jealously torment the more beautiful virginal adolescent who captures the father's affections and threatens the declining queens. Recurrent narrative features make clear this generational conflict, as the stepmothers habitually devise stratagems to retard the heroine's progress. Remanded to the hearth, cursed with one hundred years of sleep, or cast into a death-like trance by a poisoned apple, heroines suffer beneath onslaughts of maternal fear and vengeance. Ironically, both in life and fairy tale, time triumphs, delivering the daughter to inescapable womanhood and the stepmother to aged oblivion or death.

In contrast to persecuting stepmothers, natural mothers provide a counter-pattern of female protection. The christening celebration in Perrault's "Sleeping Beauty" (AT 410) is a jubilant occasion for the "King and a Queen, who were so sorry that they had no children, so sorry that it was beyond expression", and so sorry that they tried "all the waters in the world, vows, pilgrimages, every thing" before successfully conceiving this babe (p.85).11 Since the King and Queen do not survive the spell, the "young Fairy" assumes the role of tutelary spirit and promises that the princess "shall only fall into a profound sleep which shall last a hundred years, at the expiration of which a King's son shall come and awake her" (p.86). Similarly, Cinderella's deceased mother is lauded only briefly as "the best creature in the world" and the source for the daughter's "unparallelled goodness and sweetness of temper" (p.123); in her place the fairy godmother acts as guardian. This prominence of contrasting maternal figures offers a paradigm for traumatic ambivalences.12 As the child matures, she becomes increasingly conscious of conflicting needs for both infantile nurturing and independence and suffers as a result severe ambivalences toward the mother. By splitting the maternal role to envision, however briefly, a protective mother who blesses the heroine with beauty and virtue, romantic tales assuage fears of total separation. Conversely, the stepmother embodies the adolescent's awesome intimations of female rivalry, predatory sexuality, and constrictive authority. As Bruno Bettelheim argues, romantic tales often recreate oedipal tensions, when a mother's early death is followed by the father's rapid remarriage to a cruel stepmother, as in "Cinderella". Kept a child rather than acknowledged as a developing woman and potential recipient of the father's love, a young girl, like Cinderella or Snow-Drop, feels thwarted by her mother's persistent, overpowering intervention. The authoritarian mother becomes the obstacle which seems to stifle natural desires for men, marriage, and hence the achievement of female maturity. Neither heroines nor children rationally explore such deep-rooted feelings; rather, the tales' split depiction of mothers provides a guilt-free enactment of the young female's ambivalences and a means through fantasy for coping with paradoxical impulses of love and hate.

Such traumatic rivalries between young girls and the mother (or heroine and stepmother) comprise, however, only another stage in a progressive cultural as well as psychological pageant. Frequently a good fairy, old woman, or comforting godmother (second substitution for the original mother) releases the heroine from the stepmother's bondage and enables her to adopt appropriate adult roles. Godmothers or wise women may seem merely fortuitous magical agents who promise transformations to make external circumstances responsive to the heroine's inner virtue. Emancipated from enslavement as a cinderlass, Cinderella, for example, blossoms fully into a marriageable young princess at the ball. Functioning more subtly to exemplify cultural expectations, however, the "dream" figure allows the heroine not only to recall the pattern embedded by the original mother, but also to claim that paradigm of femininity as her own. Aptly, in many versions of "Cinderella" the supernatural helper is not a random apparition, but the natural mother reincarnated into a friendly creature, such as a red calf in the Scottish "Rashin Coatie," or memorialized by a hazel tree and a white bird to grant wishes, as in Grimm's "Aschenputtel".13 When the heroine gains sexual freedom by repudiating the stepmother, she immediately channels that liberty into social goals epitomized by the primary mother. Fairy tales, therefore, do acknowledge traumatic ambivalences during a female's rite of passage; they respond to the need for both detachment from childish symbioses and a subsequent embracing of adult independence. Yet, this evolution dooms female protagonists (and readers) to pursue adult potentials in one way only: the heroine dreamily anticipates conformity to those predestined roles of wife and mother. As Adrienne Rich so persuasively theorizes in Of Woman Born, the unheralded tragedy within western patriarchies is found in this mother/daughter relationship.14 If she imitates domestic martyrdom, the daughter may experience a hostile dependency, forever blaming the mother for trapping her within a constricting role. If a daughter rebels, then she risks social denunciations of her femininity, nagging internal doubts about her gender identity, and rejection by a mother who covertly envying the daughter's courage must yet overtly defend her own choices. Furthermore, romantic tales point to the complicity of women within a patriarchal culture, since as primary transmitters and models for female attitudes, mothers enforce their daughters' conformity.

By accentuating the young female's struggle with a menacing stepmother, many romantic tales only vaguely suggest the father's role in the complex oedipal and cultural dramas. But in other tales, such as "Beauty and the Beast" the attraction to the father, prohibitions against incest, and the transference of devotion to the prince round out the saga of maturation. In the throes of oedipal ambiguities, a young girl who still desires dependency seizes upon her father's indulgent affection, because it guarantees respite from maternal persecutions and offers a compensating masculine adoration. Many tales implicitly acknowledge the potent attraction between females and the father; but, as purveyors of cultural norms, they often mask latent incest as filial love and displace blatant sexual desires onto a substitute, such as a beast in "The Frog-Prince" (AT 440) or "Snow-White and Rose-Red" (AT 426). Madame de Beaumont's telling of "Beauty and the Beast" (AT 425), for example, focuses on the intimate bonds between father and daughter which impede the heroine's rite of passage. Pursued by suitors, the fifteen-year-old Beauty "civilly thanked them that courted her, and told them she was too young yet to marry, but chose to stay with her father for a few years longer" (p.139). For a heroine Beauty acts with unusual decisiveness in consigning herself to a passive waiting and in prolonging her allegiance to the father. The abrupt loss of the merchant's wealth casts the family into genteel poverty, which again elicits Beauty's determination: "Nay, several gentlemen would have married her, tho' they knew she had not a penny; but she told them she could not think of leaving her poor father in his misfortunes, but was determined to go along with him into the country to comfort and attend him" (p.139). She sacrifices individual happiness yet a third time by volunteering to die in her father's stead to satisfy the offended Beast: "Since the monster will accept of one of his daughters, I will deliver myself up to all his fury, and I am very happy in thinking that my death will save my father's life, and be a proof of my tender love for him" (p.143). Lacking a jealous stepmother to prevent this excessive attachment and to force her into a rebellious search for adult sexuality, Beauty clings childishly to her father. The tale suppresses intimations of incest; nevertheless, it symbolizes the potent, sometimes problematic oedipal dependency of young girls. Well before her encounter with Beast then, Beauty's three decisions – to stay, to serve, finally to sacrifice her life – establish her willing subservience to paternal needs. Complementary to the natural mother's role as model for appropriate female adaptions the natural father's example of desirable masculine behavior likewise shapes her dreams of a saviour and encourages the heroine's later commitment to the prince.

Beauty's apprenticeship in her father's house reveals an early conformity to domestic roles; but, her subsequent palatial captivity by Beast symbolizes a further stage in her maturation. Relinquishing filial duties, she must confront male sexuality and transmute initial aversion into romantic commitment.16 Comparable to the substitution of a stepmother, replacement of Beast for the merchant exemplifies the adolescent's ambivalent yearning for continued paternal protection, yet newly awakened anxieties about masculine desires. Initially horrified by Beast's proposal of marriage, Beauty first ignores his overt ugliness, an act which signifies her repression of sexual fears. When she then discovers his spiritual goodness, her repugnance gradually gives way to compassion, then romantic adoration, and finally marital bliss. Having schooled herself to seek virtue beneath a physically repulsive countenance, she commits herself totally: "No dear Beast, said Beauty, you must not die; live to be my husband; from this moment I give you my hand, and swear to be none but yours. Alas! I thought I had only a friendship for you, but the grief I now feel convinces me that I cannot live without you" (p.149). The magical transformation of Beast into a dazzling prince makes possible a consummation of this love affair which is no longer grotesque. Not just literally, but psychologically, the beast in the bedroom becomes transmuted into the prince in the palace. Just as Cinderella's prince charming arrives with a glass slipper, or Sleeping Beauty's prince awakens her with a kiss to reward these heroines for patient servitude or dreamy waiting, so too Beast's transformation rewards Beauty for embracing traditional female virtues. She has obligingly reformed sexual reluctance into self-sacrifice to redeem Beast from death. She trades her independent selfhood for subordination. She garners social and moral plaudits by acquiescing to this marriage. While realignment of her passions from father to prince avoids incest and psychologically allays her separation anxieties, still the female remains childlike - subjected to masculine supervision and denied any true independence.

Romantic tales require that the heroine's transference of dependency be not only sexual, but also material. Beneath romantic justifications of "love" lurk actual historical practices which reduce women to marketable commodities. In Perrault's "Diamonds and Toads" (AT 480) the King's son hardly restrains his pecuniary impulses:

The King's son, who was returning from hunting, met her, and seeing her so very pretty, asked her what she did there alone, and why she cry'd! "Alack-a-day! Sir, my mamma has turned me out of doors:' The King's son, who saw five or six pearls and as many diamonds come out of her mouth, desired her to tell him whence this happen'd. She accordingly told him the whole story; upon which the King's son fell in love with her; and considering with himself that such a gift as this was worth more than any marriage portion whatsoever in another, conducted her to the palace of the King, his father, and there married her (p.l02).

Despite this gallant's empathy for a pathetic story, he computes the monetary profit from such an inexhaustible dowry. Heroines do not so crassly calculate the fortune to be obtained through advantageous marriages, bound as they are by virtue to value love as superior. However, the tales implicitly yoke sexual awakening and surrender to the prince with social elevation and materialistic gain. Originally of regal birth, both Sleeping Beauty and Snow-Drop only regain wealth and a queen's position by marrying a prince. Although Cinderella and little Beauty experience temporary reversals of fortune which lead to servitude or genteel poverty, these heroines also miraculously receive fortunes from their marriages. A strict moral reading would attribute these rewards solely to the heroine's virtue; but, the fictional linkage of sexual awakening with the receipt of great wealth implies a more subtle causality. Because the heroine adopts conventional female virtues, that is patience, sacrifice, and dependency, and because she submits to patriarchal needs, she consequently receives both the prince and a guarantee of social and financial security through marriage. Status and fortune never result from the female's self-exertion but from passive assimilation into her husband's sphere. Allowed no opportunity for discriminating selection, the princess makes a blind commitment to the first prince who happens down the highway, penetrates the thorny barriers, and arrives deus ex machina to release her from the charmed captivity of adolescence. Paradoxically this "liberation" symbolizes her absolute capitulation, as she now fulfills the roles of wife and mother imprinted in her memory by the natural mother and re-enters a comfortable world of masculine protection shared earlier with her father.

Not designed to stimulate unilateral actions by aggressive, self-motivated women, romantic tales provide few alternative models for female behavior without criticizing their power. The unfortunate heroines of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" (AT 306) initially elude marriage by drugging suitors and magically retreating at night to dance with dream princes in an underground kingdom.17 Apparently unwilling to forgo romantic fantasies for realistic marriages, the twelve princesses are eventually foiled by a clever soldier, who promptly claims the eldest as reward. Not alone among heroines in this aversion to marriage, nonetheless, most reluctant maidens, including little Beauty, a proud daughter in Grimm's "King Thrushbeard" (AT 900), haughty All-Fair in d' Aulnoy's "The Yellow Dwarf", and the squeamish princess who disdains the frog-prince, ultimately succumb. Romantic tales thus transmit clear warnings to rebellious females: resistance to the cultural imperative to wed constitutes so severe a threat to the social fabric that they will be compelled to submit. Likewise, tales morally censure bad fairies and vain, villainous stepmothers who exhibit manipulative power or cleverness. Allowed momentary triumph over the seemingly dead Snow-White or comatose Sleeping Beauty, eventually these diabolic stepmothers are thwarted by the prince's greater powers. Facing punishment through death, banishment, or disintegration, the most self-disciplined and courageous villainesses execute justice upon themselves, thereby leaving the sterling morality of the prince and princess untarnished. Thus, in Perrault's "Sleeping Beauty" the ogrish mother-in-law voluntarily casts "her self head foremost into the tub" which she had "filled with toads, vipers, snakes, and all kinds of serpents" and where she is now "devoured in an instant by the ugly creatures she had ordered to be thrown into it for others" (p.92).18 In condign punishment for jealousy, Snow-White's stepmother dances herself to death on iron-hot shoes, while the witch of "Hansel and Gretel" (AT 327) roasts in her own oven. Because cleverness, willpower, and manipulative skill are allied with vanity, shrewishness, and ugliness, and because of their gruesome fates, odious females hardly recommend themselves as models for young readers. And because they surround alternative roles as life-long maidens or fiendish stepmothers with opprobrium, romantic tales effectively sabotage female assertiveness. By punishing exhibitions of feminine force, tales admonish, moreover, that any disruptive non-conformity will result in annihilation or social ostracism. While readers dissociate from these portraitures of feminine power, defiance, and/or self-expression, they readily identify with the prettily passive heroine whose submission to commendable roles insures her triumphant happiness.

Romantic tales exert an awesome imaginative power over the female psyche - a power intensified by formal structures which we perhaps take too much for granted. The pattern of enchantment and disenchantment, the formulaic closing with nuptial rites, and the plot's comic structure seem so conventional that we do not question the implications. Yet, traditional patterns, no less than fantasy characterizations and actions, contribute to the fairy tale's potency as a purveyor of romantic archetypes and, thereby, of cultural precepts for young women. Heroines, for example, habitually spend their adolescence in servitude to an evil stepmother, father, or beast, or in an enchanted sleep, either embalmed in a glass coffin or imprisoned in a castle tower. On one level an "enchantment" serves as a convenient metaphor to characterize the pubertal period during which young women resolve perplexing ambivalences toward both parents, longingly wish and wait for the rescuing prince, and cultivate beauty as well as moral and domestic virtues. Perrault's sixteen-year-old Beauty slumbers blissfully for a hundred years, but retains her capacity to dream, even to plot gambits for her opening conversation with the prince: "He was more at a loss than she, and we need not wonder at it; she had time to think on what to say to him, for it is very probable (tho' history mentions nothing of it) that the good fairy, during so long a sleep, had given her very agreeable dreams" (p.88). By dramatizing adolescence as an enchanted interlude between childhood and maturity, romantic tales can, however, aggravate the female's psychic helplessness. Led to believe in fairy godmothers, miraculous awakenings, and magical transformations of beasts into lovers, that is, in external powers rather than internal self-initiative as the key which brings release, the reader may feel that maturational traumas will disappear with the wave of a wand or prince's fortuitous arrival. This symbolic use of enchantment can subtly undermine feminine self-confidence. By portraying dream-drenched inactivity and magical redemptions, enchantment makes vulnerability, avoidance, sublimation, and dependency alluringly virtuous.

On another level, tales of romance frequently employ a structure of double enchantment, the stepmother's malevolent spell and the seemingly beneficent counter-charm instituted by a guardian spirit. In "Sleeping Beauty", for instance, the double enchantment occurs early: two different fairies bewitch the young princess. The narrator reports that "the old Fairy fancied she was slighted and mutter'd some threats between her teeth. One of the young Fairies, who sat by her, heard her, and judging that she might give the little Princess some unhappy gift, went as soon as they rose from table and hid herself behind the hangings, that she might speak last, and repair as much as possibly she could the evil that the old Fairy might do her" (p.85). Though the narrative

centers on the fulfillment of the old fairy's dire curse, the promises of the young fairy linger in the background, finally to emerge for the denouement. Both the pernicious and felicitous enchantments receive fulfillment: "The princess shall indeed pierce her hand with a spindle; but instead of dying, she shall only fall into a profound sleep which shall last a hundred years, at the expiration of which a King's son shall come and awake her" (p.86). Likewise, in "Beauty and the Beast" the disenchanted prince attributes his monstrous disguise to the wiles of "a wicked fairy who had condemned me to remain under that shape till a beautiful virgin should consent to marry me" (p.150). Appropriately enough, it is a "beautiful lady, that appeared to her in her dream" (p.150) who reunites Beauty with her family, transforms the envious sisters into statues, rewards Beauty's judicious choice of Beast, and transports everyone to the prince's kingdom. This supernatural lady stage-manages the finale with a "stroke with her wand" (p.150), counteracting the wicked fairy's earlier enchantment. Double enchantment thus reinforces cultural myths about both female adolescence and maturity. It suggests that marriage, like the adolescent sleep or servitude, is also an "enchanted" state with the prince or a fairy godmother rather than evil stepmother or bad fairy as charmer. Not really disenchanted into reality or self-reliance, the heroine simply trades one enchanted condition for another; she is subjected in adolescence to anticipatory dreams of rescue and in womanhood to expectations of continuing masculine protection. Romantic tales thus transmit to young women an alarming prophecy that marriage is an enchantment which will shield her against harsh realities outside the domestic realm and guarantee everlasting happiness.

Nuptial rites conventionally climax trials through which the heroine passes: separation from the original mother, a stepmother's persecutions, the father's desertion, adolescent waiting and dreaming, and a final awakening by the prince. But marriage stands for more than a single individual's triumph over psychic tribulations. Festive nuptials signify the heroine's conformity to the socially dictated roles of wife and mother and signal her assimilation into the community. Although usually absent from central portions in which the heroine endures her trials en famille or alone, a royal court frequently appears at the tale's beginning and end to emphasize the communal context for the individual's passage. For instance in "Sleeping Beauty" the kingdom gathers at the christening, a ritual which auspiciously celebrates the heroine's birth. Then as part of her benevolent charm, the good fairy who thinks that "when the princess should awake she might not know what to do with herself, being all alone in this old palace" (pp. 86-87) enchants the household staff. Decorously they remain aloof from the actual bed-chamber in which the princess receives the prince's revivifying kiss. Nevertheless, the palace household comes awake in time to prepare a festive ball in honour of the rebirth and subsequent wedding, when "after supper, without losing any time, the Lord Almoner married them in the chapel of the castle, and the chief lady of honour drew the curtains" (p.89). Comparable to the christening which acknowledges the birth, the ceremonial wedding here expresses the community's approval of sexuality within marriage. Typically in romantic tales, births, parental remarriages, and the prevalent "debutante" balls mark the preliminary stages in the heroine's progress toward maturity. But as the culminating event in most folktales and in life, marriage more importantly displays the victory of patriarchal culture itself, since the female receives her reward for tailoring personal behavior to communal norms.

Because it is a major social institution, marriage functions not merely as a comic ending, but also as a bridge between the worlds of fantasy and reality. Whereas "once upon a time" draws the reader into a timeless fantasy realm of ogresses, fairies, animistic nature, metamorphoses, and wish-fulfillment, the wedding ceremony catapults her back into contemporary reality. Precisely this close association of romantic fiction with the actuality of marriage as a social institution proves the most influential factor in shaping female expectations. Delivered from the inherent improbability of extreme fantasies, the impressionable young girl falls prey to more subtle fancies, seemingly more real because thought possible. For example, one rarely expects fairy godmothers to transform rags into ball gowns, beasts into men, and the spoken word into diamonds and pearls. Even wealth, beauty, and position may be viewed skeptically as magical accoutrements suitable for princesses, yet hardly accessible to most social classes. But marriage is an estate long sanctioned by culture and theoretically attainable by all women; thus, the female may well expect it to provide a protected existence of happy domesticity, complete with an ever hovering male to rescue her from further dangers. As irrational as this translation of fantasies into ideals for real life may seem, it is often true that romantic myth rather than actual experience governs many women's expectations of men and marriage.1f she cannot be a literal princess, she can still hope to become the sheltered mistress of a domestic realm, admired by a "prince of a man" and by children for her self-sacrifices to keep the home fires burning. Certainly marriage need not be a totally unacceptable or self-abnegating goal. Nonetheless, fairy tale portrayals of matrimony as a woman's only option limit female visions to the arena of hearth and cradle, thereby perpetuating a patriarchal status quo. Whatever the daily reality of women's wedded or professional life, fairy tales require her imaginative assent to the proposition that marriage is the best of all possible worlds. Hence, the comic endings call upon young females to value communal stability over individual needs, because their conformity is the cornerstone for all higher social unities - as moral plaudits and festive celebrations testify. As long as women acquiesce to cultural dicta set forth so mythically in romantic Märchen, then the harmonious continuity of civilization will be assured. We cannot ask fairy tales to metamorphosize into Greek tragedies. But we should recognize that the conventional patterns of double enchantment, communal rituals, and nuptial climaxes have serious implications for women's role in society.

III

It is perhaps too easy to ignore the significance of romantic tales in forming female attitudes toward the self, men, marriage, and society by relegating them to the nursery. Or one can dispute their impact by asserting that worldly education enables women to distinguish fantasy promises of bliss from conjugal actualities. Either dismissal of fairy tale implies that adult wisdom is entirely rational, thus negating the potency of cultural myths and personal fantasies in shaping one's experience. Precisely this close relationship between fantasy and reality, art and life, explains why romantic tales have in the past and continue in the present to influence so significantly female expectations of their role in patriarchal cultures. Even in the "liberated" twentieth century, many women internalize romantic patterns from ancient tales. They genuinely hope that their maturation will adhere to traditional prototypes and culminate with predicted felicity - they desperately fear that it won't. Although conscious that all men are not princes and some are unconvertible beasts and that she isn't a princess, even in disguise, still the female dreams of that "fabulous man". But as long as modern women continue to tailor their aspirations and capabilities to conform with romantic paradigms, they will live with deceptions, disillusionments, and/or ambivalences. Dedicated romanticists will reconstruct their reality into tenuous, self-deluding fantasies by suppressing any recognition of a secondary status and defending more vehemently the glories of matrimony and the patriarchy - witness the popularity of Marabel Morgan's The Total Women, Phyllis Schafly, and the anti-ERA forces and corporate profits from sales of historical, gothic, and Harlequin romances. Grown skeptical by the constant discrepancy between romantic expectations and actual relationships, other women will feel disillusioned. Consider Anne Sexton's acerbic irony as she dissects fairy tales in Transformations or those fictional characters who radically renounce all romance and all men, as in Marge Piercy's Small Changes. Between these two extremes, other women wallow in confusion, some blaming themselves for failing to actualize their potential as human beings, some assuming a personal guilt for their inability to adapt fully to widespread cultural norms. Think of Edna Pontellier in Chopin's The Awakening, Martha Quest in Lessing's Children of Violence, or Isadora Wing in Jong's Fear of Flying.

While feminist political movements of the last century may seem to signal women's liberation from traditional roles, too often the underlying truth is far more complicated: the liberation of the female psyche has not matured with sufficient strength to sustain a radical assault on the patriarchal culture. Despite an apparent susceptibility to change, modern culture remains itself stubbornly antithetical to ideals of female and male equality. Politically and existentially, women still constitute, to adopt Simon de Beauvoir's classic terms, the Other for the male Subject. Whether expressed in pornographic, domestic, and gothic fictions or enacted in the daily relations of men and women, fairy tale visions of romance also continue to perpetuate cultural ideals which subordinate women. As a major form of communal or "folk" lore, they preserve rather than challenge the patriarchy. Today women are caught in a dialectic between the cultural status quo and the evolving feminist movement, between a need to preserve values and yet to accommodate changing mores, between romantic fantasies and contemporary realities. The capacity of women to achieve equality and of culture to rejuvenate itself depends, I would suggest, upon the metamorphosis of these tensions into balances, of antagonisms into viable cooperations. But one question remains unresolved: do we have the courageous vision and energy to cultivate a newly fertile ground of psychic and cultural experience from which will grow fairy tales for human beings in the fu- ture?

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Notes

See Marcia R. Lieberman, "'Some Day My Prince Will Come': Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale", College English, 34 (December 1972), 383-95; Kay Stone, "Things Walt Disney Never Told Us", Journal of American Folklore, 88 (1975),42-9; Alison Lurie, "Fairy Tale Liberation", The NewYork Review of Books, 17 December 1970, pp. 42-4; and Alison Lurie, "Witches and Fairies: Fitzgerald to Updike", The New York Review of Books, 2 December 1971, pp. 6-1.
"He Brought My Body to Peaks of Ecstasy on His Water-Bed", Real Story, May 1975, pp. 17-19, 66-8;
Leonhard Dowty, "The Garlands of Fortune", Good Housekeeping, December 1974, pp. 75,175-83.
Victoria Holt, "Legend of the Seventh Virgin", in Gothic Tales of Love, April 1975, pp. 13-33.
See William Bascom, "Four Functions of Folklore", Journal of American Folklore 67 (1954) rpt. in The Study of Folklore, ed. Alan Dundes (Engle- wood Cliffs. N.I.: Prentice-Hall, 1965), pp. 279-98. Inheriting his assumptions from anthropologists and folklorists, such as Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Melville I. Herskovits, and Bronislaw Malinowski, Bascom succinctly articulates the functional approach to folklore: "Viewed in this light, folklore is an important mechanism for maintaining the stability of culture. It is used to inculcate the customs and ethical standards of the young, and as an adult to reward him with praise when he conforms, to punish him with ridicule or criticism when he deviates, to provide him with rationalizations when the institutions and conventions are challenged or questioned, to suggest that he be content with things as they are, and to provide him with a compensatory escape from 'the hardships, the inequalities, the injustices' of everyday life. Here, indeed, is the basic paradox of folklore, that while it plays a vital role in transmitting and maintaining the institutions of a culture and in forcing the individual to conform to them, at the same time it provides socially approved outlets for the repressions which these same institutions impose upon him" (p. 298). See also Bascom's "Folklore and Anthropology", Journal of American Folklore, 66 (1953), rpt. in The Study of Folklore, pp. 25-33.
Iona and Peter Opie, The Classic Fairy Tales (London: Oxford University Press, 1974). All further references to the tales will be to this edition which gives the texts of the "best-known fairy tales as they were first printed in English, or in their earliest surviving or prepotent text" (p. 5) and will be cited parenthetically in the text. The most significant European literary collections appear first in Renaissance Italy (Gianfrancesco Straparola, Le piacevoli Not ti, 1550-53, and Giambattista Basile, Lo Cunto de li Cunti, often called the Pentamerone, 5 vols., 1634-36), then in France (Charles Perrault, Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. Avec des Moralitez, 1697), and eventu- ally in England with Robert Samber's translation of Perrault (Histories or Tales of Past Times, 1729) .Comtesse d' Aulnoy contributes the now familiar term by titling her tales Contes des fées (1697-98), establishes fairy tales as a literary genre through imaginative retellings of older stories in A Collection of Novels and Tales, Written by that Celebrated Wit of France, The Countess V'Anois (1721); and introduces "The Story of Finetta the Cinder- Girl" into English (1721). Another French woman, Madame Marie Le Prince de Beaumont, clearly perceives the value of tales for the engagement and instruction of the young when she publishes her Magasin des enfans, ou dialogues entre une sage Gouvernante et plusieurs de ses Elèves (1756), translated as The Young Misses Magazine (1759). The eighteenth century tolerates this new vogue of fairy tales, popularly attributed to Mother Goose and Mother Bunch, by relegating them to the nursery. However, such folktales gain a new and lasting respectability with Edgar Taylor's publication of German Popular Stories (1823-26), translated from the three volume Kinder-und Hausmärchen (1812-22) of the Brothers Grimm. Illustrated by George Cruikshank, this volume provides permissible fantasies for the young, a learned account of the antique origins and diffusions of tales, an inspiration for romantic poets and novelists, and the basis for all future studies of folklore in English. Consult Opie and Opie, "Introduc- tion", pp. 11-23; and Michael Kotzin, Dickens and the Fairy Tale (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1972) for more complete histories of the fairy tale in English literary tradition.
See Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Knopf, 1976) for a thorough-going Freudian analysis of fairy tales; Marie- Louise Yon Franz, Problems of the Feminine in Fairy Tales, ed. James Hillman (New York: Spring Publications, 1972) and Hedwig Yon Beit, Das Märchen: Sein Ort in der geistigen Entwicklung (Bern: A. Francke, 1965) for Jungian analyses; and Max Lüthi, Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales, trans. Lee Chadeayne and Paul Gottwald (1962; reprint, ed., New York: Ungar, 1970). Lüthi reads "Sleeping Beauty", "Cinderella", and particularly "Rapunzel" as representations of maturation processes and acknowledges that "behind many features in our fairy tales there are old customs and beliefs; but in the context of the tale, they have lost their original character. Fairy tales are experienced by their hearers and readers, not as realistic, but as symbolic poetry" (p. 66).
See J.l.Fischer, "The Sociopsychological Analysis of Folktales", Current Anthropology, 4 (1963), 235-95. In this rigorous survey of recent trends Fischer argues cogently for the complex interaction of psychological, sociological, and structuralist interpretations of tales and formulates a functionalized approach: "For a tale to persist, therefore, some sort of balance must be achieved between two sets of demands: one, the demands of the individual for personal pleasure and the reduction of his anxiety, and the other, the demands of the other members of the society that the individual pursue his personal goals only in ways which will also contribute to, or at least not greatly harm, the welfare of the society" (p. 259).
Tale type numbers are taken from Antti A. Årne, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, trans. and enl. Stith Thompson, 2nd rev., Folklore Fellows Communications, no.184 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961). See Marrian Roalfe Cox, Cinderella, Publications of the Folk-lore Society, vol. 31 (london: D. Nutt, 1893) and Anna Birgitta Rooth, The Cinderella Cycle (lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1951). Although this tale dates back 2500 years, the earliest recorded version occurs in a Chinese book written about 850 A.D. See Arthur Waley, "The Chinese Cinderella Story", Folk-Lore: Being the Quarterly Transactions of the Folk-Lore Society,58 (1947), 226-38.
Grimm's "Snow-Drop" is the most well-known modern version, popularized in America by Walt Disney's film adaptation, although Basile's variation in the Pentamerone makes clearer the oedipal entanglements which give rise to the stepmother's jealousy. See also Stith Thompson, The Folktale (New York: Holt, 1946), pp. {23-4; and Ernst Boklen, Sneewittchenstudien, Mythologische Bibliothek, vols. 3 and 7 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1910 and 1915).
Thompson in The Folktale notes that stories only slightly variant from the familiar Perrault version of "Sleeping Beauty" appear in Basile's Penctamerone, Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmürchen, and in outline in the French prose romance of Perceforest from the l5th century (p. 97). Lüthi uses the three versions by Grimm, Basile, and Per:rault for an analysis of differences in literary content and style (pp.21-46), while Bettelheim notes significant psychoanalytic variations (pp. 225-36). Consult also Hedwig von Beit, Symbolik des Märchens; Versuch einer Veutung, 2 vols. (Bern: A. Francke, 1952-56); Iohannes Bolte and George Polivka, Ammerkungen zu den Kinder- und Hausmürchen der Bruder Grimm, 5 vols. (Leipzig: Dieterich, 1913-32); Fritz Ernst, ed. Dornröschen. In drei Sprachen (Bern: H. Huber, 1949); Karl I. Oben'auer, Das Märchens: Dichtung und Deutung (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1959); Ian de Vries, "Dornröschen", Fabula: Journal of Folktale Studies, 2 (1958),110-21, for further commentary.
Bettelheim, pp. 236-77, focuses upon the sibling rivalry in "Cinderella', but also examines variants of this tale, the "basic trust" between mother and child which asserts itself later with the godmother, the displacements of anger to the stepmother, and the oedipal tensions which the tale dramatizes. Although heavy-handed in his Freudian reading, Bettelheim argues convincingly that "in order to achieve personal identity and gain self-realization on the highest level, the story tells us, both are needed: the original good parents, and later the "step"-parents who seemed to demand "cruelly" and "insensitively". The two together make up the "Cinderella" story. If the good mother did not for a time turn into the evil stepmother, there would be no impetus to develop a separate self" (p. 274).
Opie and Opie, pp. 117-21; Rooth, pp. 153-6.
Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton,1973). Defining "matrophobia" as the fear of becoming one's mother, Rich articulates the tension between mothers and daughters: "Thousands of daughters see their mothers as having taught a compromise and self-hatred they are struggling to win free of, the one through whom the restrictions and degradations of a female existence were perforce transmitted.... Matrophobia can be seen as a womanly splitting of the self in the desire to become purged once and for all of our mothers' bondage, to become individuated and free. The mother stands for the victim in ourselves, the unfree woman, the martyr. Our personalities seem dangerously to blur and overlap with our mothers'; and, in a desperate attempt toknow where mother ends and daughter begins, we perform radical surgery" (pp. 235-6).
Thompson, The Folktale, pp. 97-102, discusses the variant tale types of the monstrous bridegroom, a theme given its classical form in the story of Cupid and Psyche, recorded in Apuleius' narrative The Golden Ass (2nd c, A.D.). Consult also Erich Neumann, Amor and Psyche; The Psychic Development of the Feminine: A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius, trans. Ralph Manheim, Bollingen Series, no.54 (1952; reprint ed., Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956); W. R. S. Ralston, "Beauty and the Beast", The Nineteenth Century, 4 (1878),990-1012; Jan Ojvind Swahn, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche (Lund: C. W.K. Gleerup, 1955); and Ernst Tegethoff, Studien zum Märchentypus von Amor und Psyche, Rhein: Beitriige und Hilfsbucher zur Germ. Philologie und Volkskunde, no.4 (Bonn: K. Shroeder,1922).
See Bettelheim, pp. 277-310, for a strict Freudian reading of the animal-groom cycle of fairy tales.
Opie and Opie, pp. 188-89, report that in its current form, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is "unlikely to be earlier than the seventeenth century". Recorded first by the Brothers Grimm, it appears in English translation in Edgar Taylor's German Popular Stories (1823-26).
In Perrault's version of "Sleeping Beauty", the prince discourteously rapes and deserts the slumbering princess, unknowingly engendering twins who remove the offending splinter while sucking, and then returns to discover the awakened woman. The prince keeps his marriage secret for two years, but makes regular hunting trips into the forest to visit his wife and children. After the King's death, the prince proclaims his marriage and departs to the wars. During his absence, the queen-mother, who is descended from the race of ogres, plots to kill and eat the princess and her children. Although they escape through the compassion of the clerk of the kitchen, the queen discovers the deception and is about to execute them when the prince providentially returns. The second portion of Perrault's version closely resembles Basile's original, although Basile makes the hero an already married King, whose wife discovers his adulterous relationship with Sleeping Beauty.

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The Story of a Mother

2006-02-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

The Story Of A Mother

A mother sat there with her little child. She was so downcast, so afraid that it should die! It was so pale, the small eyes had closed themselves, and it drew its breath so softly, now and then, with a deep respiration, as if it sighed; and the mother looked still more sorrowfully on the little creature.

Then a knocking was heard at the door, and in came a poor old man wrapped up as in a large horse-cloth, for it warms one, and he needed it, as it was the cold winter season! Everything out-of doors was covered with ice and snow, and the wind blew so that it cut the face.

As the old man trembled with cold, and the little child slept a moment, the mother went and poured some ale into a pot and set it on the stove, that it might be warm for him; the old man sat and rocked the cradle, and the mother sat down on a chair close by him, and looked at her little sick child that drew its breath so deep, and raised its little hand.

"Do you not think that I shall save him?" said she. "Our Lord will not take him from me!"

And the old man--it was Death himself--he nodded so strangely, it could just as well signify yes as no. And the mother looked down in her lap, and the tears ran down over her cheeks; her head became so heavy--she had not closed her eyes for three days and nights; and now she slept, but only for a minute, when she started up and trembled with cold.

"What is that?" said she, and looked on all sides; but the old man was gone, and her little child was gone--he had taken it with him; and the old clock in the corner burred, and burred, the great leaden weight ran down to the floor, bump! and then the clock also stood still.

But the poor mother ran out of the house and cried aloud for her child.

Out there, in the midst of the snow, there sat a woman in long, black clothes; and she said, "Death has been in thy chamber, and I saw him hasten away with thy little child; he goes faster than the wind, and he never brings back what he takes!"

"Oh, only tell me which way he went!" said the mother. "Tell me the way, and I shall find him!"

"I know it!" said the woman in the black clothes. "But before I tell it, thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy child! I am fond of them. I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!"

"I will sing them all, all!" said the mother. "But do not stop me now--I may overtake him--I may find my child!"

But Night stood still and mute. Then the mother wrung her hands, sang and wept, and there were many songs, but yet many more tears; and then Night said, "Go to the right, into the dark pine forest; thither I saw Death take his way with thy little child!"

The roads crossed each other in the depths of the forest, and she no longer knew whither she should go! then there stood a thorn-bush; there was neither leaf nor flower on it, it was also in the cold winter season, and ice-flakes hung on the branches.

"Hast thou not seen Death go past with my little child?" said the mother.

"Yes," said the thorn-bush; "but I will not tell thee which way he took, unless thou wilt first warm me up at thy heart. I am freezing to death; I shall become a lump of ice!"

And she pressed the thorn-bush to her breast, so firmly, that it might be thoroughly warmed, and the thorns went right into her flesh, and her blood flowed in large drops, but the thornbush shot forth fresh green leaves, and there came flowers on it in the cold winter night, the heart of the afflicted mother was so warm; and the thorn-bush told her the way she should go.

She then came to a large lake, where there was neither ship nor boat. The lake was not frozen sufficiently to bear her; neither was it open, nor low enough that she could wade through it; and across it she must go if she would find her child! Then she lay down to drink up the lake, and that was an impossibility for a human being, but the afflicted mother thought that a miracle might happen nevertheless.

"Oh, what would I not give to come to my child!" said the weeping mother; and she wept still more, and her eyes sunk down in the depths of the waters, and became two precious pearls; but the water bore her up, as if she sat in a swing, and she flew in the rocking waves to the shore on the opposite side, where there stood a mile-broad, strange house, one knew not if it were a mountain with forests and caverns, or if it were built up; but the poor mother could not see it; she had wept her eyes out.

"Where shall I find Death, who took away my little child?" said she.

"He has not come here yet!" said the old grave woman, who was appointed to look after Death's great greenhouse! "How have you been able to find the way hither? And who has helped you?"

"OUR LORD has helped me," said she. "He is merciful, and you will also be so! Where shall I find my little child?"

"Nay, I know not," said the woman, "and you cannot see! Many flowers and trees have withered this night; Death will soon come and plant them over again! You certainly know that every person has his or her life's tree or flower, just as everyone happens to be settled; they look like other plants, but they have pulsations of the heart. Children's hearts can also beat; go after yours, perhaps you may know your child's; but what will you give me if I tell you what you shall do more?"

"I have nothing to give," said the afflicted mother, "but I will go to the world's end for you!"

"Nay, I have nothing to do there!" said the woman. "But you can give me your long black hair; you know yourself that it is fine, and that I like! You shall have my white hair instead, and that's always something!"

"Do you demand nothing else?" said she. "That I will gladly give you!" And she gave her her fine black hair, and got the old woman's snow-white hair instead.

So they went into Death's great greenhouse, where flowers and trees grew strangely into one another. There stood fine hyacinths under glass bells, and there stood strong-stemmed peonies; there grew water plants, some so fresh, others half sick, the water-snakes lay down on them, and black crabs pinched their stalks. There stood beautiful palm-trees, oaks, and plantains; there stood parsley and flowering thyme: every tree and every flower had its name; each of them was a human life, the human frame still lived--one in China, and another in Greenland--round about in the world. There were large trees in small pots, so that they stood so stunted in growth, and ready to burst the pots; in other places, there was a little dull flower in rich mould, with moss round about it, and it was so petted and nursed. But the distressed mother bent down over all the smallest plants, and heard within them how the human heart beat; and amongst millions she knew her child's.

"There it is!" cried she, and stretched her hands out over a little blue crocus, that hung quite sickly on one side.

"Don't touch the flower!" said the old woman. "But place yourself here, and when Death comes--I expect him every moment--do not let him pluck the flower up, but threaten him that you will do the same with the others. Then he will be afraid! He is responsible for them to OUR LORD, and no one dares to pluck them up before HE gives leave."

All at once an icy cold rushed through the great hall, and the blind mother could feel that it was Death that came.

"How hast thou been able to find thy way hither?" he asked. "How couldst thou come quicker than I?"

"I am a mother," said she.

And Death stretched out his long hand towards the fine little flower, but she held her hands fast around his, so tight, and yet afraid that she should touch one of the leaves. Then Death blew on her hands, and she felt that it was colder than the cold wind, and her hands fell down powerless.

"Thou canst not do anything against me!" said Death.

"But OUR LORD can!" said she.

"I only do His bidding!" said Death. "I am His gardener, I take all His flowers and trees, and plant them out in the great garden of Paradise, in the unknown land; but how they grow there, and how it is there I dare not tell thee."

"Give me back my child!" said the mother, and she wept and prayed. At once she seized hold of two beautiful flowers close by, with each hand, and cried out to Death, "I will tear all thy flowers off, for I am in despair."

"Touch them not!" said Death. "Thou say'st that thou art so unhappy, and now thou wilt make another mother equally unhappy."

"Another mother!" said the poor woman, and directly let go her hold of both the flowers.

"There, thou hast thine eyes," said Death; "I fished them up from the lake, they shone so bright; I knew not they were thine. Take them again, they are now brighter than before; now look down into the deep well close by; I shall tell thee the names of the two flowers thou wouldst have torn up, and thou wilt see their whole future life--their whole human existence: and see what thou wast about to disturb and destroy."

And she looked down into the well; and it was a happiness to see how the one became a blessing to the world, to see how much happiness and joy were felt everywhere. And she saw the other's life, and it was sorrow and distress, horror, and wretchedness.

"Both of them are God's will!" said Death.

"Which of them is Misfortune's flower and which is that of Happiness?" asked she.

"That I will not tell thee," said Death; "but this thou shalt know from me, that the one flower was thy own child! it was thy child's fate thou saw'st--thy own child's future life!"

Then the mother screamed with terror, "Which of them was my child? Tell it me! Save the innocent! Save my child from all that misery! Rather take it away! Take it into God's kingdom! Forget my tears, forget my prayers, and all that I have done!"

"I do not understand thee!" said Death. "Wilt thou have thy child again, or shall I go with it there, where thou dost not know!"

Then the mother wrung her hands, fell on her knees, and prayed to our Lord: "Oh, hear me not when I pray against Thy will, which is the best! hear me not! hear me not!"

And she bowed her head down in her lap, and Death took her child and went with it into the unknown land.

Pasted from <http://andersen.thefreelibrary.com/Andersens-Fairy-Tales/1-12>

The Red Shoes

2006-02-01T19:14:00.000-08:00

The Red Shoes

There was once a little girl who was very pretty and delicate, but in summer she was forced to run about with bare feet, she was so poor, and in winter wear very large wooden shoes, which made her little insteps quite red, and that looked so dangerous!

In the middle of the village lived old Dame Shoemaker; she sat and sewed together, as well as she could, a little pair of shoes out of old red strips of cloth; they were very clumsy, but it was a kind thought. They were meant for the little girl. The little girl was called Karen.

On the very day her mother was buried, Karen received the red shoes, and wore them for the first time. They were certainly not intended for mourning, but she had no others, and with stockingless feet she followed the poor straw coffin in them.

Suddenly a large old carriage drove up, and a large old lady sat in it: she looked at the little girl, felt compassion for her, and then said to the clergyman:

"Here, give me the little girl. I will adopt her!"

And Karen believed all this happened on account of the red shoes, but the old lady thought they were horrible, and they were burnt. But Karen herself was cleanly and nicely dressed; she must learn to read and sew; and people said she was a nice little thing, but the looking-glass said: "Thou art more than nice, thou art beautiful!"

Now the queen once travelled through the land, and she had her little daughter with her. And this little daughter was a princess, and people streamed to the castle, and Karen was there also, and the little princess stood in her fine white dress, in a window, and let herself be stared at; she had neither a train nor a golden crown, but splendid red morocco shoes. They were certainly far handsomer than those Dame Shoemaker had made for little Karen. Nothing in the world can be compared with red shoes.

Now Karen was old enough to be confirmed; she had new clothes and was to have new shoes also. The rich shoemaker in the city took the measure of her little foot. This took place at his house, in his room; where stood large glass-cases, filled with elegant shoes and brilliant boots. All this looked charming, but the old lady could not see well, and so had no pleasure in them. In the midst of the shoes stood a pair of red ones, just like those the princess had worn. How beautiful they were! The shoemaker said also they had been made for the child of a count, but had not fitted.

"That must be patent leather!" said the old lady. "They shine so!"

"Yes, they shine!" said Karen, and they fitted, and were bought, but the old lady knew nothing about their being red, else she would never have allowed Karen to have gone in red shoes to be confirmed. Yet such was the case.

Everybody looked at her feet; and when she stepped through the chancel door on the church pavement, it seemed to her as if the old figures on the tombs, those portraits of old preachers and preachers' wives, with stiff ruffs, and long black dresses, fixed their eyes on her red shoes. And she thought only of them as the clergyman laid his hand upon her head, and spoke of the holy baptism, of the covenant with God, and how she should be now a matured Christian; and the organ pealed so solemnly; the sweet children's voices sang, and the old music-directors sang, but Karen only thought of her red shoes.

In the afternoon, the old lady heard from everyone that the shoes had been red, and she said that it was very wrong of Karen, that it was not at all becoming, and that in future Karen should only go in black shoes to church, even when she should be older.

The next Sunday there was the sacrament, and Karen looked at the black shoes, looked at the red ones--looked at them again, and put on the red shoes.

The sun shone gloriously; Karen and the old lady walked along the path through the corn; it was rather dusty there.

At the church door stood an old soldier with a crutch, and with a wonderfully long beard, which was more red than white, and he bowed to the ground, and asked the old lady whether he might dust her shoes. And Karen stretched out her little foot.

"See, what beautiful dancing shoes!" said the soldier. "Sit firm when you dance"; and he put his hand out towards the soles.

And the old lady gave the old soldier alms, and went into the church with Karen.

And all the people in the church looked at Karen's red shoes, and all the pictures, and as Karen knelt before the altar, and raised the cup to her lips, she only thought of the red shoes, and they seemed to swim in it; and she forgot to sing her psalm, and she forgot to pray, "Our Father in Heaven!"

Now all the people went out of church, and the old lady got into her carriage. Karen raised her foot to get in after her, when the old soldier said,

"Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!"

And Karen could not help dancing a step or two, and when she began her feet continued to dance; it was just as though the shoes had power over them. She danced round the church corner, she could not leave off; the coachman was obliged to run after and catch hold of her, and he lifted her in the carriage, but her feet continued to dance so that she trod on the old lady dreadfully. At length she took the shoes off, and then her legs had peace.

The shoes were placed in a closet at home, but Karen could not avoid looking at them.

Now the old lady was sick, and it was said she could not recover. She must be nursed and waited upon, and there was no one whose duty it was so much as Karen's. But there was a great ball in the city, to which Karen was invited. She looked at the old lady, who could not recover, she looked at the red shoes, and she thought there could be no sin in it; she put on the red shoes, she might do that also, she thought. But then she went to the ball and began to dance.

When she wanted to dance to the right, the shoes would dance to the left, and when she wanted to dance up the room, the shoes danced back again, down the steps, into the street, and out of the city gate. She danced, and was forced to dance straight out into the gloomy wood.

Then it was suddenly light up among the trees, and she fancied it must be the moon, for there was a face; but it was the old soldier with the red beard; he sat there, nodded his head, and said, "Look, what beautiful dancing shoes!"

Then she was terrified, and wanted to fling off the red shoes, but they clung fast; and she pulled down her stockings, but the shoes seemed to have grown to her feet. And she danced, and must dance, over fields and meadows, in rain and sunshine, by night and day; but at night it was the most fearful.

She danced over the churchyard, but the dead did not dance--they had something better to do than to dance. She wished to seat herself on a poor man's grave, where the bitter tansy grew; but for her there was neither peace nor rest; and when she danced towards the open church door, she saw an angel standing there. He wore long, white garments; he had wings which reached from his shoulders to the earth; his countenance was severe and grave; and in his hand he held a sword, broad and glittering.

"Dance shalt thou!" said he. "Dance in thy red shoes till thou art pale and cold! Till thy skin shrivels up and thou art a skeleton! Dance shalt thou from door to door, and where proud, vain children dwell, thou shalt knock, that they may hear thee and tremble! Dance shalt thou--!"

"Mercy!" cried Karen. But she did not hear the angel's reply, for the shoes carried her through the gate into the fields, across roads and bridges, and she must keep ever dancing.

One morning she danced past a door which she well knew. Within sounded a psalm; a coffin, decked with flowers, was borne forth. Then she knew that the old lady was dead, and felt that she was abandoned by all, and condemned by the angel of God.

She danced, and she was forced to dance through the gloomy night. The shoes carried her over stack and stone; she was torn till she bled; she danced over the heath till she came to a little house. Here, she knew, dwelt the executioner; and she tapped with her fingers at the window, and said, "Come out! Come out! I cannot come in, for I am forced to dance!"

And the executioner said, "Thou dost not know who I am, I fancy? I strike bad people's heads off; and I hear that my axe rings!"

"Don't strike my head off!" said Karen. "Then I can't repent of my sins! But strike off my feet in the red shoes!"

And then she confessed her entire sin, and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced away with the little feet across the field into the deep wood.

And he carved out little wooden feet for her, and crutches, taught her the psalm criminals always sing; and she kissed the hand which had wielded the axe, and went over the heath.

"Now I have suffered enough for the red shoes!" said she. "Now I will go into the church that people may see me!" And she hastened towards the church door: but when she was near it, the red shoes danced before her, and she was terrified, and turned round. The whole week she was unhappy, and wept many bitter tears; but when Sunday returned, she said, "Well, now I have suffered and struggled enough! I really believe I am as good as many a one who sits in the church, and holds her head so high!"

And away she went boldly; but she had not got farther than the churchyard gate before she saw the red shoes dancing before her; and she was frightened, and turned back, and repented of her sin from her heart.

And she went to the parsonage, and begged that they would take her into service; she would be very industrious, she said, and would do everything she could; she did not care about the wages, only she wished to have a home, and be with good people. And the clergyman's wife was sorry for her and took her into service; and she was industrious and thoughtful. She sat still and listened when the clergyman read the Bible in the evenings. All the children thought a great deal of her; but when they spoke of dress, and grandeur, and beauty, she shook her head.

The following Sunday, when the family was going to church, they asked her whether she would not go with them; but she glanced sorrowfully, with tears in her eyes, at her crutches. The family went to hear the word of God; but she went alone into her little chamber; there was only room for a bed and chair to stand in it; and here she sat down with her Prayer-Book; and whilst she read with a pious mind, the wind bore the strains of the organ towards her, and she raised her tearful countenance, and said, "O God, help me!"

And the sun shone so clearly, and straight before her stood the angel of God in white garments, the same she had seen that night at the church door; but he no longer carried the sharp sword, but in its stead a splendid green spray, full of roses. And he touched the ceiling with the spray, and the ceiling rose so high, and where he had touched it there gleamed a golden star. And he touched the walls, and they widened out, and she saw the organ which was playing; she saw the old pictures of the preachers and the preachers' wives. The congregation sat in cushioned seats, and sang out of their Prayer-Books. For the church itself had come to the poor girl in her narrow chamber, or else she had come into the church. She sat in the pew with the clergyman's family, and when they had ended the psalm and looked up, they nodded and said, "It is right that thou art come!"

"It was through mercy!" she said.

And the organ pealed, and the children's voices in the choir sounded so sweet and soft! The clear sunshine streamed so warmly through the window into the pew where Karen sat! Her heart was so full of sunshine, peace, and joy, that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunshine to God, and there no one asked after the RED SHOES.

Pasted from <http://andersen.thefreelibrary.com/Andersens-Fairy-Tales/1-18>

The Snow Queen

2006-02-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

The Snow Queen (Page 6)

SIXTH STORY. The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman

Suddenly they stopped before a little house, which looked very miserable. The roof reached to the ground; and the door was so low, that the family were obliged to creep upon their stomachs when they went in or out. Nobody was at home except an old Lapland woman, who was dressing fish by the light of an oil lamp. And the Reindeer told her the whole of Gerda's history, but first of all his own; for that seemed to him of much greater importance. Gerda was so chilled that she could not speak.

"Poor thing," said the Lapland woman, "you have far to run still. You have more than a hundred miles to go before you get to Finland; there the Snow Queen has her country-house, and burns blue lights every evening. I will give you a few words from me, which I will write on a dried haberdine, for paper I have none; this you can take with you to the Finland woman, and she will be able to give you more information than I can."

When Gerda had warmed herself, and had eaten and drunk, the Lapland woman wrote a few words on a dried haberdine, begged Gerda to take care of them, put her on the Reindeer, bound her fast, and away sprang the animal. "Ddsa! Ddsa!" was again heard in the air; the most charming blue lights burned the whole night in the sky, and at last they came to Finland. They knocked at the chimney of the Finland woman; for as to a door, she had none.

There was such a heat inside that the Finland woman herself went about almost naked. She was diminutive and dirty. She immediately loosened little Gerda's clothes, pulled off her thick gloves and boots; for otherwise the heat would have been too great--and after laying a piece of ice on the Reindeer's head, read what was written on the fish-skin. She read it three times: she then knew it by heart; so she put the fish into the cupboard --for it might very well be eaten, and she never threw anything away.

Then the Reindeer related his own story first, and afterwards that of little Gerda; and the Finland woman winked her eyes, but said nothing.

"You are so clever," said the Reindeer; "you can, I know, twist all the winds of the world together in a knot. If the seaman loosens one knot, then he has a good wind; if a second, then it blows pretty stiffly; if he undoes the third and fourth, then it rages so that the forests are upturned. Will you give the little maiden a potion, that she may possess the strength of twelve men, and vanquish the Snow Queen?"

"The strength of twelve men!" said the Finland woman. "Much good that would be!" Then she went to a cupboard, and drew out a large skin rolled up. When she had unrolled it, strange characters were to be seen written thereon; and the Finland woman read at such a rate that the perspiration trickled down her forehead.

But the Reindeer begged so hard for little Gerda, and Gerda looked so imploringly with tearful eyes at the Finland woman, that she winked, and drew the Reindeer aside into a corner, where they whispered together, while the animal got some fresh ice put on his head.

"'Tis true little Kay is at the Snow Queen's, and finds everything there quite to his taste; and he thinks it the very best place in the world; but the reason of that is, he has a splinter of glass in his eye, and in his heart. These must be got out first; otherwise he will never go back to mankind, and the Snow Queen will retain her power over him."

"But can you give little Gerda nothing to take which will endue her with power over the whole?"

"I can give her no more power than what she has already. "Don't you see how great it is? Don't you see how men and animals are forced to serve her; how well she gets through the world barefooted? She must not hear of her power from us; that power lies in her heart, because she is a sweet and innocent child! If she cannot get to the Snow Queen by herself, and rid little Kay of the glass, we cannot help her. Two miles hence the garden of the Snow Queen begins; thither you may carry the little girl. Set her down by the large bush with red berries, standing in the snow; don't stay talking, but hasten back as fast as possible." And now the Finland woman placed little Gerda on the Reindeer's back, and off he ran with all imaginable speed.

"Oh! I have not got my boots! I have not brought my gloves!" cried little Gerda. She remarked she was without them from the cutting frost; but the Reindeer dared not stand still; on he ran till he came to the great bush with the red berries, and there he set Gerda down, kissed her mouth, while large bright tears flowed from the animal's eyes, and then back he went as fast as possible. There stood poor Gerda now, without shoes or gloves, in the very middle of dreadful icy Finland.

She ran on as fast as she could. There then came a whole regiment of snow-flakes, but they did not fall from above, and they were quite bright and shining from the Aurora Borealis. The flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the larger they grew. Gerda well remembered how large and strange the snow-flakes appeared when she once saw them through a magnifying-glass; but now they were large and terrific in another manner--they were all alive. They were the outposts of the Snow Queen. They had the most wondrous shapes; some looked like large ugly porcupines; others like snakes knotted together, with their heads sticking out; and others, again, like small fat bears, with the hair standing on end: all were of dazzling whiteness--all were living snow-flakes.

Little Gerda repeated the Lord's Prayer. The cold was so intense that she could see her own breath, which came like smoke out of her mouth. It grew thicker and thicker, and took the form of little angels, that grew more and more when they touched the earth. All had helms on their heads, and lances and shields in their hands; they increased in numbers; and when Gerda had finished the Lord's Prayer, she was surrounded by a whole legion. They thrust at the horrid snow-flakes with their spears, so that they flew into a thousand pieces; and little Gerda walked on bravely and in security. The angels patted her hands and feet; and then she felt the cold less, and went on quickly towards the palace of the Snow Queen.

But now we shall see how Kay fared. He never thought of Gerda, and least of all that she was standing before the palace.

Pasted from <http://andersen.thefreelibrary.com/Andersens-Fairy-Tales/1-6-6#knot>

The Golden Goose

2006-02-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

The Golden Goose

There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called Dummling,[*] and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion.

It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst.

When he entered the forest he met a little grey-haired old man who bade him good day, and said: 'Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket, and let me have a draught of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty.' But the clever son answered: 'If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have none for myself; be off with you,' and he left the little man standing and went on.

But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man's doing.

After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him, like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine. But the second son, too, said sensibly enough: 'What I give you will be taken away from myself; be off!' and he left the little man standing and went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed; when he had made a few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be carried home.

Then Dummling said: 'Father, do let me go and cut wood.' The father answered: 'Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone, you do not understand anything about it.' But Dummling begged so long that at last he said: 'Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting yourself.' His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer.

When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise, and greeting him, said: 'Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out of your bottle; I am so hungry and thirsty.' Dummling answered: 'I have only cinder-cake and sour beer; if that pleases you, we will sit down and eat.' So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his cinder-cake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said:

'Since you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will find something at the roots.' Then the little man took leave of him.

Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have liked to have one of its golden feathers.

The eldest thought: 'I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a feather,' and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it.

The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she was held fast.

At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others screamed out: 'Keep away; for goodness' sake keep away!' But she did not understand why she was to keep away. 'The others are there,' she thought, 'I may as well be there too,' and ran to them; but as soon as she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they had to spend the night with the goose.

The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out, without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, wherever his legs took him.

In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the procession he said: 'For shame, you good-for-nothing girls, why are you running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?' At the same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away, but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself obliged to run behind.

Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out: 'Hi! your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a christening today!' and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but was also held fast to it.

Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers came with their hoes from the fields; the parson called out to them and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose.

Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train before the king's daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have her for his wife; but the king did not like the son-in- law, and made all manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could certainly help him; so he went into the forest, and in the same place where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so sorely, and he answered: 'I have such a great thirst and cannot quench it; cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!'

'There, I can help you,' said Dummling, 'just come with me and you shall be satisfied.'

He led him into the king's cellar, and the man bent over the huge barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a new condition; he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying: 'I have eaten a whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to die of hunger.'

At this Dummling was glad, and said: 'Get up and come with me; you shall eat yourself full.' He led him to the king's palace where all the flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it, began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished. Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride; but the king again sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on water. 'As soon as you come sailing back in it,' said he, 'you shall have my daughter for wife.'

Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted, he said: 'Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you the ship; and I do all this because you once were kind to me.' Then he gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The wedding was celebrated, and after the king's death, Dummling inherited his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife.

[*] Simpleton

Pasted from <http://grimm.thefreelibrary.com/Fairy-Tales/50-1#tying+up>

The Little Match Girl

Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.

One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.

She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!

The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of that she thought.

In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.

Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. "Rischt!" how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.

She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the match went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant's house.

Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.

"Someone is just dead!" said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God.

She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression of love.

"Grandmother!" cried the little one. "Oh, take me with you! You go away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!" And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted to warm herself," people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.

Pasted from <http://andersen.thefreelibrary.com/Andersens-Fairy-Tales/1-15>

Slovenly Peter

2006-01-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

See this frowsy "cratur"
Pah! it's Struwwelpeter
On his fingers rusty,
On his two-head musty,
Scissors seldom come;
Lets his talons grow a year
Do any loathe him? Some!
They hail him "Modern satyr -
Disgusting Struwwelpeter."

This Frederick! this Frederick!
A naughty, wicked boy was he;
He caught the flies, poor little things,
And then tore off their tiny wings;
He kill'd the birds, and broke the chairs,
And throw the kitten down the stairs;
And oh! far worse and worse,
He whipp'd his good and gentle nurse!

The Dreadful Story of Pauline and the Matches

Now see! oh! see, what a dreadful thing
The fire has caught her apron-string;
Her apron burns, her arms, her hair;
She burns all over, everywhere.

The Story of the Wild Huntsman

This is the Wild Huntsman that shoots the hares
With the grass-green coat he always wears:
With game-bag, powder-horn and gun,
He's going out to have some fun.

He finds it hard, without a pair
Of spectacles, to shoot the hare:
He put his spectacles upon his nose, and said,
"Now I will shoot the hares, and kill them dead."
The hare sits snug in leaves and grass
And laughs to see the green man pass.

Now, as the sun grew very hot
And he a heavy gun had got,
He lay down underneath a tree
And went to sleep, as you may see.
And, while he slept like any top,
The little hare came, hop, hop, hop,Ñ
Took gun and spectacles, and then
Softly on tiptoe went off again.

The green man wakes, and sees her place
The spectacles upon her face.
She pointed the gun at the hunter's heart,
Who jumped up at once with a start.
He cries, and screams, and runs away,
"Help me, good people, help! I pray."

At last he stumbled at the well
Head over ears, and in he fell.
The hare stopp'd short, took aim, and hark!
Bang went the gun! - she miss'd her mark!

The poor man's wife was drinking up
Her coffee in her coffee-cup;
The gun shot cup and saucer through;
"O dear!" cried she, "what shall I do?"
Hiding, close by the cottage there,
Was the hare's own child, the little hare;
When he heard the shot, he quickly arose,
And while he stood upon his toes,
The coffee fell and burn'd his nose;
"O dear," he cried, "what burns me so?"
And held up the spoon with his little toe.

One day, Mamma said, "Conrad dear,
I must go out and leave you here.
But mind now, Conrad, what I say,
Don't suck your thumb while I'm away.
The great tall tailor always comes
To little boys that suck their thumbs.
And ere they dream what he's about
He takes his great sharp scissors
And cuts their thumbs clean off, - and then
You know, they never grow again."

Mamma had scarcely turn'd her back,
The thumb was in, alack! alack!

The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.

Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last.
Mamma comes home; there Conrad stands,
And looks quite sad, and shows his hands;-
"Ah!" said Mamma "I knew he'd come
To naughty little Suck-a-Thumb."

Augustus was a chubby lad;
Fat ruddy cheeks Augustus had;
And everybody saw with joy
The plump and hearty healthy boy.
He ate and drank as he was told,
And never let his soup get cold.
But one day, one cold winter's day,
He threw away the spoon and screamed:
"O take the nasty soup away!
I won't have any soup to-day:
I will not, will not eat my soup!
I will not eat it, no!"

Look at him, now the fourth day's come!
He scarce outweighs a sugar-plum;

He's like a little bit of thread;
And on the fifth day he was-dead.
Let me see if Philip can
Be a little gentleman;
Let me see if he is able
To sit still for once at table."
Thus spoke, in earnest tone,
The father to his son;
And the mother looked very grave
To see Philip so misbehave.
But Philip he did not mind
His father who was so kind.
He wriggled
And giggled,
And then, I declare,
Swung backward and forward
And tilted his chair,
Just like any rocking horse;-
"Philip! I am getting cross!"

And the fishes, in a row,
Stared to see him coming so.

One step more! Oh! sad to tell!
Headlong in poor Johnny fell.

The three little fishes, in dismay,
Wagged their tails and swam away.

There lay Johnny on his face;
With his nice red writing-case;
But, as they were passing by,,
Two strong men had heard him cry;
And, with sticks, these two strong men
Hook'd poor Johnny out again.

Oh! you should have seen him shiver
When they pull'd him from the river
He was in a sorry plight,
Dripping wet, and such a fright!
Wet all over, everywhere,
Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair
Johnny never will forget
What it is to be so wet.

And the fishes, one, two, three,
Are come back again, you see;
Up they came the moment after,
To enjoy the fun and laughter.
Each popp'd out his little head,
And, to tease poor Johnny, said,
"Silly little Johnny, look,
You have lost your writing-book!"
Look at them laughing and do you see?
His satchel is drifting, far out to sea!

When the rain comes tumbling down
In the country or the town,
All good little girls and boys
Stay at home and mind their toys.
Robert thought, - "No, when it pours,
It is better out of doors."
Rain it did, and in a minute
Bob was in it.
Here you see him, silly fellow,
Underneath his red umbrella.

Soon they got to such height,
They were nearly out of sight!
And the hat went Up so high,
That it almost touch'd the sky.
No one ever yet could tell
Where they stopp'd, or where they fell;
Only this one thing is plain,
Rob was never seen again!

Heinrich Hoffmann, the creator of "Slovenly Peter", worked as neurologist in Frankfurt.

You find the stories of "Slovenly Peter" in the Internet
in German at gutenberg.spiegel.de/hoffmanh/struwwel/struwwel.htm,
in German and Englisch at www.fln.vcu.edu/struwwel/struwwel.html and
in English, French and German at www.struwwelpeter.com.

Grimm Fairy Tale - Our Lady's Child

2006-01-28T21:05:00.000-08:00

Hard by a great forest dwelt a wood-cutter with his wife, who had an only child, a little girl three years old. They were so poor, however, that they no longer had daily bread, and did not know how to get food for her. One morning the wood-cutter went out sorrowfully to his work in the forest, and while he was cutting wood, suddenly there stood before him a tall and beautiful woman with a crown of shining stars on her head, who said to him 'I am the virgin mary,
mother of the child jesus. You are poor and needy, bring your child to me, I will take her with me and be her mother, and care for her.' The wood-cutter obeyed, brought his child, and gave her to the virgin mary, who took her up to heaven with her.

There the child fared well, ate sugar-cakes, and drank sweet milk, and her clothes were of
gold, and the little angels played with her. And when she was fourteen years of age, the virgin mary called her one day and said 'dear child, I am about to make a long journey, so take into your keeping the keys of the thirteen doors of heaven. Twelve of these you may open, and behold the glory which is within them, but the thirteenth, to which this little key belongs, is forbidden you. Take care not to open it, or you will be unhappy.' The girl promised to be
obedient, and when the virgin mary was gone, she began to examine the dwellings of the kingdom of heaven. Each day she opened one of them, until she had made the round of the twelve. In each of them sat one of the apostles in the midst of a great light, and she rejoiced in
all the magnificence and splendor, and the little angels who always accompanied her rejoiced with her. Then the forbidden door alone remained, and she felt a great desire to know what could be hidden behind it, and said to the angels 'I will not open it entirely, and I will not go inside, but I will unlock it so that we can see just a little through the opening.' 'Oh'no, said the little angels, 'that would be a sin. The virgin mary has forbidden it, and it might easily cause your unhappiness.' Then she was silent, but the desire in her heart was not stilled, but gnawed there and tormented her, and let her have no rest. And once when the angels had all gone out, she thought 'now I am quite alone, and I could peep in. If I do, no one will ever know.' She sought out the key, and when she had got it in her hand, she put it in the lock, and when she had put it in, she turned it round as well. Then the door sprang open, and she saw there the trinity sitting in fire and splendor. She stayed there awhile, and looked at everything in amazement, then she touched the light a little with her finger, and her finger became quite golden.
Immediately a great fear fell on her. She shut the door violently, and ran hi there. But her terror would not quit her, let her do what she 'Yes, said the girl, for the second time. Then she perceived the finger which had become golden from touching the fire of heaven, and
saw well that the child had sinned, and said for the third time 'have you not done it.' 'No, said the girl for the third time. Then said the virgin mary 'you have not obeyed me, and besides that you have lied, you are no longer worthy to be in heaven.' Then the girl fell into a deep sleep, and when she awoke she lay on the earth below, and in the midst of a wilderness. She wanted to cry out, but she could bring forth no sound. She sprang up and wanted to run away, but whithersoever she turned herself, she was continually held back by thick hedges of thorns through which she could not break.

In the desert, in which she was imprisoned, there stood an old hollow tree, and this had to be her dwelling-place. Into this she crept when night came, and here she slept. Here, too, she found a shelter from might, and her heart beat continually and would not be still, the gold too
stayed on her finger, and would not go away, let her rub it and wash it never so much. It was not long before the virgin mary came back from her journey. She called the girl before her, and asked to have the keys of heaven back. When the maiden gave her the bunch, the virgin looked into her eyes and said 'have you not opened the thirteenth door also.' 'No, she replied. Then she laid her hand on the girl's heart, and felt how it beat and beat, and saw right well that she had disobeyed her order and had opened the door. Then she said once again 'are you certain that you have not done it.' storm and rain, but it was a miserable life, and bitterly did she weep when she remembered how happy she had been in heaven, and how the angels had played with her. Roots and wild berries were her only food, and for these she sought as far as she could go. In the autumn she picked up the fallen nuts and leaves, and carried them into the hole. The nuts were her food in winter, and when snow and ice came, she crept amongst the leaves like a poor little animal that she might not freeze. Before long her clothes were all torn, and one bit of them after another fell off her. As soon, however, as the sun shone warm again, she went out and sat in front of the tree, and her long hair covered her on all sides like a mantle. Thus she sat year after
year, and felt the pain and the misery of the world. One day, when the trees were once more clothed in fresh green, the king of the country was hunting in the forest, and followed a roe, and as it had fled into the thicket which shut in this part of the forest, he got off his horse, tore the bushes asunder, and cut himself a path with his sword. When he had at last forced his way through, he saw a wonderfully beautiful maiden sitting under the tree, and she sat
there and was entirely covered with her golden hair down to her very feet. He stood still and looked at her full of surprise, then he spoke to her and said 'who are you. Why are you sitting here in the wilderness.' But she gave no answer, for she could not open her mouth. The king continued 'will you go with me to my castle. Then she just nodded her head a little. The king took her in his arms, carried her to his horse, and rode home with her, and when he reached
the royal castle he caused her to be dressed in beautiful garments, and gave her all things in abundance. Although she could not speak, she was still so beautiful and charming that he began to love her with all his heart, and it was not long before he married her. After a year or so had passed, the queen brought a son into the world. Thereupon the virgin mary appeared to her in the night when she lay in her bed alone, and said 'if you will tell the truth and confess that you did unlock the forbidden door, I will open your mouth and give you back your speech, but if you persevere in your sin, and deny obstinately, I will take your new-born child away with me.' The the queen was permitted to answer, but she remained hard, and said 'no, I did not open the forbidden door, and the virgin mary took the new-born child from her arms, and vanished with it. Next morning when the child was not to be found, it was whispered among the people
that the queen was a man-eater, and had put her own child to death. She heard all this and could say nothing to the contrary, but the king would not believe it, for he loved her so much. When a year had gone by the queen again bore a son, and in the night the virgin mary again came to her, and said 'if you will confess that you opened the forbidden door, I will give you your child back and untie your tongue but if you continue in sin and deny it, I will take away with me this new child also.' Then the queen again said 'no, I did not open the forbidden door.' And the virgin took the child out of her arms, and away with her to heaven. Next morning, when this child also had disappeared, the people declared quite loudly that the queen had devoured it, and the king's councillors demanded that she should be brought to justice. The king however, loved her so dearly that he would not believe it, and commanded the councillors under pain of death not to say any more about it. The following year the queen gave birth to a beautiful little daughter, and for the third time the virgin mary appeared to her in the night and said 'follow me.' She took the queen by the hand and led her to heaven, and showed her there her two eldest children, who smiled at her, and were playing with the ball of the world. When the queen rejoiced thereat, the virgin mary said 'is your heart not yet softened. If you will own that you opened the forbidden door, I will give you back your two little sons.' But for the third time the queen answered 'no, I did not open the forbidden door.' Then the virgin let her sink down to
earth once more, and took from her likewise her third child.

Next morning, when the loss was reported abroad, all the people cried loudly 'the queen is a man-eater. She must be judged, and the king was no longer able to restrain his councillors. Thereupon a trial was held, and as she could not answer, and defend herself, she was condemned to be burnt at the stake. The wood was got together, and when she was fast bound to the stake, and the fire began to burn round about her, the hard ice of pride melted, her heart was moved by repentance, and she thought 'if I could but confess before my death that I opened the door.' Then her voice came back to her, and she cried out loudly 'yes, mary, I did it, and straight-way rain fell from the sky and extinguished the flames of fire, and a light broke
forth above her, and the virgin mary descended with the two little sons by her side, and the new-born daughter in her arms. She spoke kindly to her, and said 'he who repents his sin and acknowledges it, is forgiven.' Then she gave her the three children, untied her tongue, and granted her happiness for her whole life.

Knot Tying - Figure 8

2006-01-28T21:04:00.000-08:00

Knot Tying - Noose

2006-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

Knot Tying

2006-01-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Two Efficient Knots

2006-01-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

Lovers Knot

2006-01-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

Grimm Fairy Tale - The Story of a Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was

2006-01-28T20:43:00.000-08:00

A certain father had two sons, the elder of whom was smart and sensible, and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said 'there's a fellow who will give his father some trouble.'
When anything had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it, but if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal place, he answered 'oh, no, father, I'll not go there, it makes me shudder.' For he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said 'oh, it makes us shudder.'

The younger sat in a corner and listened with the rest of them, and could not imagine what they
could mean. 'They are always saying 'it makes me shudder, it makes me shudder, it does not make me shudder.' Thought he. 'That, too, must be an art of which I understand nothing.'

Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day 'hearken to me, you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.'
'Well, father, he replied, 'I am quite willing to learn something - indeed, if it could but be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don't understand that at all yet.'

The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and thought to himself 'good God, what a blockhead that brother of mine is. He will never be good for anything as long as he lives. He who wants to be a sickle must bend himself betimes.'

The father sighed, and answered him 'you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.' Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing.

'Just think, said he, 'when I asked him how he was going to earnhis bread, he actually wanted to learn to shudder.' 'If that be all, replied the sexton, 'he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon polish him.' The father was glad to do it, for he thought 'it will train the boy a little.' The sexton therefore took him into his house, and he had to ring the church bell.

After a day or two, the sexton awoke him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and ring the bell. 'You shall soon learn what shuddering is, thought he, and secretly went there before him, and when the boy was at the top of the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding hole. 'Who is there.' Cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did not move or stir.
'Give an answer, cried the boy, 'or take yourself off, you have no business here at night.'

The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time 'what do you want here. - Speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the steps.' The sexton thought 'he can't mean to be as bad as his words, uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose, he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell down ten steps and remained lying there in a corner.

Thereupon he rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and fell asleep. The sexton's wife waited a long time forher husband, but he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy, and asked 'do you not know where my husband is.

He climbed up the tower before you did.' 'No, I don't know, replied the boy, 'but someone was standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he would neither give an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel, and threw him downstairs. Just go
there and you will see if it was he. I should be sorry if it were.'

The woman ran away and found her husband, who was lying moaning inthe corner, and had broken his leg.

She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the boy's father. 'Your boy, cried she, 'has been the cause of a great misfortune. He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.' The father was terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. 'What wicked tricks are these.' Said he, 'the devil must have put them into your head.' 'Father, he replied, 'do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go away.' 'Ah, said the father, 'I have nothing but unhappiness with you. Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.'

'Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate, understand one art which will support me.' 'Learn what you will, spoke the father, 'it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you. Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.' 'Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than that, I can easily keep it in mind.'

When day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to himself 'if I could but shudder. If I could but shudder.' Then a man approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could see the gallows, the man said to him 'look, there is the tree where seven men have married the ropemaker's daughter, and are now learning how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will soon learn how to shudder.'

'If that is all that is wanted, answered the youth, 'it is easily done, but if I learn how to shudder as fast as that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the morning.' Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and waited till evening came. And as he
was cold, he lighted himself a fire, but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself 'if you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and suffer.'

And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven. Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught their clothes.
So he said 'take care, or I will hang you up again.' The dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said 'if you will not take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you, and he hung them up again each in his turn.

Then he sat down by his fire and fell asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have the fifty talers, and said 'well, do you know how to shudder.' 'No, answered he, 'how should I know. Those fellows up there did not open their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which they had on their bodies get burnt.' Then the man saw that he
would not get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying 'such a youth has never come my way before.' The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to himself 'ah, if I could but shudder.

Ah, if I could but shudder.' A waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked 'who are you.' 'I don't know, answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked 'from whence do you come.'
'I know not.'
'Who is your father.'
'That I may not tell you.'
'What is it that you are always muttering between your teeth.'
'Ah, replied the youth, 'I do so wish I could shudder, but no one can teach me how.'
'Enough of your foolish chatter, said the waggoner. 'Come, go with
me, I will see about a place for you.'

The youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlor the youth again said quite loudly 'if I could but shudder. If I could but shudder.'

The host who heard this, laughed and said 'if that is your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.' 'Ah, be silent, said the hostess, 'so many prying persons have already lost their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as these should never see the daylight again.' But the youth said 'however difficult it may be, I will learn it. For this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.'

He let the host have no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a haunted castle where any one could very easily learn what shuddering was, if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough.

Already many men had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the youth went next morning to the king and said 'if it be allowed, I will willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.' The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said 'you may ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must be things without life.' Then he answered 'then I ask for a fire, a turning lathe, and a cutting-board with the knife.' The
king had these things carried into the castle for him during the day.

When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. 'Ah, if I could but shudder.' Said he, 'but I shall not learn it here either.'
Towards midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, something cried suddenly from one corner 'au, miau. How cold we are.'
'You fools.' Cried he, 'what are you crying about. If you are cold, come and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.' And when he had said that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery eyes.

After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said 'comrade, shall we have a game of cards.' 'Why not.' He replied, 'but just show me your paws.' Then they stretched
out their claws. 'Oh, said he, 'what long nails you have. Wait, I must first cut them for you.' Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cutting-board and screwed their feet fast.
'I have looked at your fingers, said he, 'and my fancy for card-playing has gone, and he struck them dead and threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two, and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and corner came black cats and black dogs with red-hot chains, and more and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put it out.

He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried 'away with you, vermin, and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others he killed, and threw out into the fish-pond. When he came back he fanned the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he looked round and saw a great bed in the corner.
'That is the very thing for me, said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over the whole of the castle.

'That's right, said he, 'but go faster.' Then the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down, over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up in the air, got out and
said 'now any one who likes, may drive, and lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he 'after all it is a pity, -- for so
handsome a man.' The youth heard it, got up, and said 'it has not come to that yet.' Then the king was astonished, but very glad, and asked how he had fared. 'Very well indeed, answered he, 'one night is past, the two others will pass likewise.' Then he went to the innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said 'I never expected to see you alive again. Have you learnt how to shudder yet.'
'No, said he, 'it is all in vain. If some one would but tell me.' The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the fire, and once more began his old song 'if I could but shudder.' When midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard, at first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the chimney and fell before him. 'Hullo.' Cried he, 'another half
belongs to this. This is not enough.' Then the uproar began again, there was a roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. 'Wait, said he, 'I will just stoke up the fire a little
for you.' When he had done that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a hideous man was sitting in his place. 'That is no part of our bargain, said the youth, 'the bench is mine.'

The man wanted to push him away, the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more men fell down, one after the other, they brought nine dead men's legs and two skulls, and set them up and played at nine-pins with them. The youth also wanted to play and said 'listen you, can I join you.' 'Yes, if you have any money.' Money enough, replied he, 'but your balls are not quite round.' Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and turned them till they were round. 'There, now they will roll better.' Said he. 'Hurrah. Now we'll have fun.' He played with them
and lost some of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came to inquire after him. 'How has it fared with you this time.' Asked he. 'I have been playing at nine-pins, he answered, 'and have lost a couple of farthings.' 'Have you not shuddered then.' 'What.' Said he, 'I have had a wonderful time. If I did but know what it was to shudder.'

The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly 'if I could but shudder.'
When it grew late, six tall men came in and brought a coffin. Then said he 'ha, ha, that is certainly my little cousin, who died only a few days ago, and he beckoned with his finger, and cried 'come, little cousin, come.' They placed the coffin on the ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. 'Wait, said he, 'I will warm you a little, and went to the fire and warmed his hand and laid it on the dead man's face, but he remained cold. Then he took him out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he thought to himself 'when two people lie in bed together, they warm each other, and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move. Then said the youth, 'see, little cousin, have I not warmed you.' The dead man, however, got up and cried 'now will I strangle you.' 'What.' Said he, 'is that the way you thank me. You shall at once go into your coffin again, and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. 'I cannot manage to shudder, said he. 'I shall never learn it here as long as I live.'

Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible. He was old, however, and had a long white beard. 'You wretch, cried he, 'you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.' 'Not so fast, replied the youth. 'If I am to die, I shall have to have a say in it.' 'I will soon seize you, said the fiend. 'Softly, softly, do not talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.' 'We shall see, said the old man. 'If you are stronger, I will let you go - come, we will try.' Then he led him by dark passages to a smith's forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground. 'I can do better than that, said the youth, and went to the other anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his white beard hung down. Ten the youth seized the axe, split the anvil with one blow, and in it caught the old man's beard. 'Now I have you, said the youth. 'Now it is your turn to die.' Then he seized an iron
bar and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him three chests full of gold. 'Of these, said he, 'one part is for the poor, the other for the king, the third yours.'

In the meantime it struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in darkness. 'I shall still be able to find my way out, said he and felt about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire. Next morning the king came and said 'now you must have learnt what shuddering is.' 'No, he answered 'what can it be. My dead cousin was here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.'

'Then, said the king, 'you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.' 'That is all very well, said he, 'but still I do not know what it is to shudder.' Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated, but howsoever much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still said always 'if I could but shudder - if I could but shudder.'

And this at last angered her. Her waiting-maid said 'I will find a cure for him, he shall soon learn what it is to shudder. She went out to the stream which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons brought to her.

At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucketful of cold water with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried 'oh, what makes me shudder so. - What
makes me shudder so, dear wife. Ah. Now I know what it is to shudder.'

Grimm Fairy Tale - The Old Beggar Woman

2006-01-28T20:40:00.000-08:00

There was once an old woman, but you have surely seen an old woman go a-begging before now. This woman begged likewise, and when she got anything she said, may God reward you. The beggar-woman came to a door, and there by the fire a friendly rogue of a boy was standing warming himself.

The boy said kindly to the poor old woman as she was standing shivering thus by the door, come, old mother, and warm yourself. She came in, but stood too near the fire, so that her old rags began to burn, and she was not aware of it. The boy stood and saw that, but he ought to have put the flames out.

Is it not true that he ought to have put them out. And if he had not any water, then he should have wept all the water in his body out of his eyes, and that would have supplied two pretty streams with which to extinguish them.

Grimm Fairy Tale - The Louse & The Flea

2006-01-28T20:37:00.000-08:00

A louse and a flea kept house together and were brewing beer in an egg-shell. Then the little louse fell in and burnt herself. At this the little flea began to scream loudly. Then said the little room-door, little flea, why are you screaming.

Because the louse has burnt herself.
Then the little door began to creak. At this a little broom in the corner said, why are you creaking, little door. Have I not reason to creak.

The little louse has burnt herself, the little flea is weeping.

So the little broom began to sweep frantically. Then a little cart passed by and said, why are you sweeping, little broom. Have I not reason to sweep.
The little louse has burnt herself, the little flea is weeping, the little door is creaking.
So the little cart said, then I will run, and began to run like mad.

Then said the ash-heap by which it ran, why are you running so, little cart. Have I not reason to run.
The little louse has burnt herself, the little flea is weeping, the little door is creaking, the little broom is sweeping. The ash-heap said, then I will burn furiously, and began to burn in clear flames. A little tree stood near the ash-heap and said, ash-heap, why are you burning. Have I not reason to burn.
The little louse has burnt herself,
the little flea is weeping, the little door is creaking, the little broom is sweeping, the little cart is running. The little tree said, then I will shake myself, and began to shake herself so that all her leaves fell off.

A girl who came up with her water-pitcher saw that, and said, little tree, why are you shaking yourself. Have I not reason to shake myself.
The little louse has burnt herself,
the little flea is weeping,
the little door is creaking,
the little broom is sweeping,
the little cart is running,
the little ash-heap is burning.
At this the girl said, then I will break my little water-pitcher.
And she broke her little water-pitcher. Then said the little spring from which ran the water, girl, why are you breaking your water-pitcher.
Have I not reason to break my water-pitcher.
The little louse has burnt herself,
the little flea is weeping,
the little door is creaking,
the little broom is sweeping,
the little cart is running,
the little ash-heap is burning,
the little tree is shaking itself.
Oh, ho, said the spring, then I will begin to flow, and began to flow violently. And in the water everything was drowned, the girl, the little tree, the little ash-heap, the little cart, the broom, the little door, the little flea, the little louse, all together.

Grimm Fairy Tale / Fable - Death's Messenger

2006-01-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

In ancient times a giant was once traveling on a great highway, when suddenly an unknown man sprang up before him, and said, halt, not one step farther. What. Cried the giant, a creature
whom I can crush between my fingers, wants to block my way. Who are you that you dare to speak so boldly. I am death, answered the other. No one resists me, and you also must obey my commands. But the giant refused, and began to struggle with death.

It was a long, violent battle, in which at last the giant got the upper hand, and struck death down with his fist, so that he collapsed by a stone. The giant went his way, and death lay there
conquered, and so weak that he could not get up again. What will be done now, said he, if I stay lying here in a corner. No one will die in the world, and it will get so full of people that they
won't have room to stand beside each other.

In the meantime a young man came along the road, who was strong and healthy, singing a song, and glancing around on every side. When he saw the half-fainting one, he went compassionately to him, raised him up, poured a strengthening draught out of his flask for him, and waited till he regained some strength.

Do you know, said the stranger, whilst he was getting up, who I am, and who it is whom you have helped on his legs again. No, answered the youth, I do not know you. I am death, said he, I spare no one, and can make no exception with you - but that you may see that I am grateful, I promise you that I will not fall on you unexpectedly, but will send my messengers to you before I come and take you away.

Well, said the youth, it is something gained that I shall know when you come, and at any rate be safe from you for so long. Then he went on his way, and was light-hearted, and enjoyed himself, and lived without thought. But youth and health did not last long. Soon came sicknesses and sorrows, which tormented him by day, and took away his rest by night. Die, I shall not, said he to himself, for death will send his messengers before that, but I do wish these wretched days of sickness were over. As soon as he felt himself well again he began once more to live merrily.

Then one day someone tapped him on the shoulder. He looked round, and death stood behind him, and said, follow me, the hour of your departure from this world has come. What, replied the man, will you break your word. Did you not promise me that you would send your messengers to me before coming yourself. I have seen none.

Silence, answered death. Have I not sent one messenger to you after another. Did not fever come and smite you, and shake you, and cast you down. Has not dizziness bewildered your head. Has not gout twitched you in all your limbs. Did not your ears sing. Did not tooth-ache bite into your cheeks. Was it not dark before your eyes. And besides all that, has not my own brother sleep reminded you every night of me. Did you not lie by night as if you were already dead. The man could make no answer, he yielded to his fate, and went away with death.

Grimm Fairy Tale - The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces

2006-01-28T20:22:00.000-08:00

There was once upon a time a king who had twelve daughters, each one more beautiful than the other. They all slept together in one chamber, in which their beds stood side by side, and every night when they were in them the king locked the door, and bolted it. But in the morning when he unlocked the door, he saw that their shoes were worn out with dancing, and no one could find out how that had come to pass. Then the king caused it to be proclaimed that whosoever could
discover where they danced at night, should choose one of them for his wife and be king after his death, but that whosoever came forward and had not discovered it within three days and nights, should have forfeited his life.

It was not long before a king's son presented himself, and offered to undertake the enterprise. He was well received, and in the evening was led into a room adjoining the princesses, sleeping-chamber. His bed was placed there, and he was to observe where they went and danced, and in order that they might do nothing secretly or go away to some other place, the door of their room was left open. But the eyelids of the prince grew heavy as lead, and he fell asleep, and when he awoke in the morning, all twelve had been to the dance, for their shoes were standing there with holes in the soles. On the second and third nights there was no difference, and then his head was struck off without mercy. Many others came after this and undertook the enterprise, but all forfeited their lives.

Now it came to pass that a poor soldier, who had a wound, and could serve no longer, found himself on the road to the town where the king lived. There he met an old woman, who asked
him where he was going. "I hardly know myself," answered he, and added in jest, "I had half a mind to discover where the princesses danced their shoes into holes, and thus become king." "That is not so difficult," said the old woman, "you must not drink the wine which will be brought to you at night, and must pretend to be sound asleep." With that she gave him a little cloak, and said, "If you wear this, you will be invisible, and then you can steal after the
twelve." When the soldier had received this good advice, he fell to in earnest, took heart, went to the king, and announced himself as a suitor. He was as well received as the others, and royal garments were put upon him.

He was conducted that evening at bed-time into the antechamber, and as he was about to go to bed, the eldest came and brought him a cup of wine, but he had tied a sponge under his chin, and let the wine run down into it, without drinking a drop. Then he lay down and when he had lain a while, he began to snore, as if in the deepest sleep. The twelve princesses heard that, and
laughed, and the eldest said, "He, too, might as well have saved his life." With that they got up, opened wardrobes, presses, cupboards, and brought out pretty dresses, dressed themselves before the mirrors, sprang about, and rejoiced at the prospect of the dance.

Only the youngest said, "I know not how it is, you are very happy, but I feel very strange, some misfortune is certainly about to befall us." "You are a goose, who are always frightened," said the eldest. "Have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already come here in vain. I had hardly any need to give the soldier a sleeping-draught, the booby would not have awakened anyway."

When they were all ready they looked carefully at the soldier, but he had closed his eyes and did not move or stir, so they felt themselves safe enough. The eldest then went to her bed and tapped it, whereupon it immediately sank into the earth, and one after the other they descended through the opening, the eldest going first. The soldier, who had watched everything, tarried no longer, put on his little cloak, and went down last with the youngest. Half-way down
the steps, he just trod a little on her dress, she was terrified at that, and cried out, "What is that? Who is pulling my dress?" "Don't be so silly," said the eldest, "you have caught it on a nail."

Then they went all the way down, and when they were at the bottom, they were standing in a wonderfully pretty avenue of trees, all the leaves of which were of silver, and shone and glistened. The soldier thought, "I must carry a token away with me," and broke off a twig
from one of them, on which the tree cracked with a loud report. The youngest cried out again. "Something is wrong, did you hear the crack?" But the eldest said, "It is a gun fired for joy, because we have got rid of our prince so quickly." After that they came into an avenue where all the leaves were of gold, and lastly into a third where they were of bright diamonds, he broke off a twig from each, which made such a crack each time that the youngest started back in terror, but the eldest still maintained that they were salutes.

They went on and came to a great lake whereon stood twelve little boats, and in every boat sat a handsome prince, all of whom were waiting for the twelve, and each took one of them with him, but the soldier seated himself by the youngest. Then her prince said, "I wonder why the boat is so much heavier to-day. I shall have to row with all my strength, if I am to get it across." "What should cause that," said the youngest, "but the warm weather?" "I feel very warm too."

On the opposite side of the lake stood a splendid, brightly-lit castle, from whence resounded the joyous music of trumpets and kettle-drums. They rowed there, entered, and each prince danced with the girl he loved, but the soldier danced with them unseen, and when one of them had a cup of wine in her hand he drank it up, so that the cup was empty when she carried it to her mouth, the youngest was alarmed at this, but the eldest always silenced her. They danced
there till three o'clock in the morning when all the shoes were danced into holes, and they were forced to leave off, the princes rowed them back again over the lake, and this time the soldier seated himself by the eldest.

On the shore they took leave of their princes, and promised to return the following night. When they reached the stairs the soldier ran on in front and lay down in his bed, and when the twelve had come up slowly and wearily, he was already snoring so loudly that they could all hear him, and they said, "So far as he is concerned, we are safe." They took off their beautiful dresses, laid them away, put the worn-out shoes under the bed, and lay down. Next morning the soldier
was resolved not to speak, but to watch the wonderful goings-on, and again went with them a second and a third night. Then everything was just as it had been the first time, and each time
they danced until their shoes were worn to pieces. But the third time he took a cup away with him as a token.

When the hour had arrived for him to give his answer, he took the three twigs and the cup, and went to the king, but the twelve stood behind the door, and listened for what he was going to say.

When the king put the question, "Where have my twelve daughters danced their shoes to pieces in the night?" He answered, "In an underground castle with twelve princes," and related how it had come to pass, and brought out the tokens. The king then summoned his daughters, and asked them if the soldier had told the truth, and when they saw that they were betrayed, and that falsehood would be of no avail, they were obliged to confess all. Thereupon the king asked which of them he would have to wife. He answered, "I am no longer young, so give me the eldest."

Then the wedding was celebrated on the self-same day, and the kingdom was promised him after the king's death. But the princes were bewitched for as many days as they had danced nights with the twelve.

Allerleirauh

2006-01-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

Allerleirauh

There was once upon a time a king who had a wife with golden hair, and she was so beautiful that her equal was not to be found on earth. It came to pass that she lay ill, and as she felt that she must soon die, she called the king and said, if you wish to marry again after my death, take no one who is not quite as beautiful as I am, and who has not just such golden hair as I have, this you must promise me. And after the king had promised her this she closed her eyes and died.

For a long time the king could not be comforted, and had no thought of taking another wife. At length his councillors said, this cannot go on. The king must marry again, that we may have a queen. And now messengers were sent about far and wide, to seek a bride who equalled the late queen in beauty. In the whole world, however, none was to be found, and even if one had been found, still there would have been no one who had such golden hair. So the messengers came home as they
went.

Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her dead mother, and had the same golden hair. When she was grown up the king looked at her one day, and saw that in every respect she was like his late wife, and suddenly felt a violent love for her. Then he spoke to his councillors, I will marry my daughter, for she is the counterpart of my late wife, otherwise I can find no bride who
resembles her. When the councillors heard that, they were shocked, and said, God has forbidden a father to marry his daughter. No good can come from such a crime, and the kingdom will be involved in the ruin.

The daughter was still more shocked when she became aware of her father's resolution, but hoped to turn him from his design. Then she said to him, before I fulfil your wish, I must have three dresses, one as golden as the sun, one as silvery as the moon, and one as bright as the stars, besides this, I wish for a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur and peltry joined together, and one of every kind of animal in your kingdom must give a piece of his skin for it. For she thought, to get that will be quite impossible, and thus I shall divert my father from his wicked intentions.

The king, however, did not give it up, and the cleverest maidens in his kingdom had to weave the three dresses, one as golden as the sun, one as silvery as the moon, and one as bright as the stars, and his huntsmen had to catch one of every kind of animal in the whole of his kingdom, and take from it a piece of its skin, and out of these was made a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur. At length, when all was ready, the king caused the mantle to be brought, spread it out before
her, and said, the wedding shall be tomorrow.

When, therefore, the king's daughter saw that there was no longer any hope of turning her father's heart, she resolved to run away. In the night whilst every one was asleep, she got up, and took three different things from her treasures, a golden ring, a golden spinning-wheel, and a golden reel. The three dresses of the sun, moon, and stars she placed into a nutshell, put on her mantle of all
kinds of fur, and blackened her face and hands with soot. Then she commended herself to God, and went away, and walked the whole night until she reached a great forest. And as she was tired, she got into a hollow tree, and fell asleep. The sun rose, and she slept on, and she was still sleeping when it was full day.

Then it so happened that the king to whom this forest belonged, was hunting in it. When his dogs came to the tree, they sniffed, and ran barking round about it. The king said to the huntsmen, just see what kind of wild beast has hidden itself in there. The huntsmen obeyed his order, and when they came back they said, a wondrous beast is lying in the hollow tree, we have never before seen one like it. Its skin is fur of a thousand different kinds, but it is lying asleep. Said the king, see if you can catch it alive, and then fasten it to the carriage, and we will take it with us.

When the huntsmen laid hold of the maiden, she awoke full of terror, and cried to them, I am a poor child, deserted by father and mother, have pity on me, and take me with you. Then said they, Allerleirauh, you will be useful in the kitchen, come with us, and you can sweep up the ashes. So they put her in the carriage, and took her home to the royal palace. There they pointed out to her a closet under the stairs, where no daylight entered, and said, hairy animal, there you can live and sleep. Then she was sent into the kitchen, and there she carried wood and water, swept the hearth,
plucked the fowls, picked the vegetables, raked the ashes, and did all the dirty work. Allerleirauh lived there for a long time in great wretchedness. Alas, fair princess, what is to become of you now.

It happened, however, that one day a feast was held in the palace, and she said to the cook, may I go upstairs for a while, and look on. I will place myself outside the door. The cook answered, yes, go, but you must be back here in half-an-hour to sweep the hearth. Then she took her oil-lamp, went into her den, put off her dress of fur, and washed the soot off her face and hands, so that her full beauty once more came to light. And she opened the nut, and took out her dress which shone like the sun, and when she had done that she went up to the festival, and every one made way for her, for no one knew her, and thought no otherwise than that she was a king's daughter.

The king came to meet her, gave his hand to her, and danced with her, and thought in his heart, my eyes have never yet seen any one so beautiful. When the dance was over she curtsied, and when the king looked round again she had vanished, and none knew whither. The guards who stood outside the palace were called and questioned, but no one had seen her.

She had run into her little den, however, there quickly taken off her dress, made her face and hands black again, put on the mantle of fur, and again was Allerleirauh. And now when she went into the kitchen, and was about to get to her work and sweep up the ashes, the cook said, leave that alone till morning, and make me the soup for the king, I, too, will go upstairs awhile, and take a look, but let no hairs fall in, or in future you shall have nothing to eat. So the cook went away, and Allerleirauh made the soup for the king, and made bread soup and the best she could, and when it was ready she fetched her golden ring from her little den, and put it in the bowl in which
the soup was served. When the dancing was over, the king had his soup brought and ate it, and he liked it so much that it seemed to him he had never tasted better. But when he came to the bottom of the bowl, he saw a golden ring lying, and could not conceive how it could have got there. Then he ordered the cook to appear before him.

The cook was terrified when he heard the order, and said to Allerleirauh, you have certainly let a hair fall into the soup, and if you have, you shall be beaten for it. When he came before the king the latter asked who had made the soup. The cook replied, I made it. But the king said, that is not true,
for it was much better than usual, and cooked differently. He answered, I must acknowledge that I did not make it, it was made by the hairy animal. The king said, go and bid it come up here. When Allerleirauh came, the king said, who are you. I am a poor girl who no longer has any father or mother. He asked further, of what use are you in my palace. She answered, I am good for nothing but to have boots thrown at my head. He continued, where did you get the ring which was in the soup. She answered, I know nothing about the ring. So the king could learn nothing, and had to send her away again.

After a while, there was another festival, and then, as before, Allerleirauh begged the cook for leave to go and look on. He answered, yes, but come back again in half-an-hour, and make the king the bread soup which he so much likes. Then she ran into her den, washed herself quickly, and took out of the nut the dress which was as silvery as the moon, and put it on. Then she went up and was like
a princess, and the king stepped forward to meet her, and rejoiced to see her once more, and as the dance was just beginning they danced it together. But when it was ended, she again disappeared so quickly that the king could not observe where she went. She, however, sprang into her den, and once more made herself a hairy animal, and went into the kitchen to prepare the bread soup. When the cook had gone upstairs, she fetched the little golden spinning-wheel, and put it in the bowl so that the soup covered it. Then it was taken to the king, who ate it, and liked it as much as before, and had the cook brought, who this time likewise was forced to confess that Allerleirauh had prepared the soup.

Allerleirauh again came before the king, but she answered that she was good for nothing else but to have boots thrown at her head, and that she knew nothing at all about the little golden spinning-wheel.

When, for the third time, the king held a festival, all happened just as it had done before. The cook said, fur-skin, you are a witch, and always put something in the soup which makes it so good that the king likes it better than that which I cook, but as she begged so hard, he let her go up at the appointed time. And now she put on the dress which shone like the stars, and thus entered the hall. Again the king danced with the beautiful maiden, and thought that she never yet had been so beautiful. And whilst she was dancing, he contrived, without her noticing it, to slip a golden ring on her finger, and he had given orders that the dance should last a very long time. When it was ended, he wanted to hold her fast by her hands, but she tore herself loose, and sprang
away so quickly through the crowd that she vanished from his sight.

She ran as fast as she could into her den beneath the stairs, but as she had been too long, and had stayed more than half-an-hour she could not take off her pretty dress, but only threw over it her
mantle of fur, and in her haste she did not make herself quite black, but one finger remained white. Then Allerleirauh ran into the kitchen, and cooked the bread soup for the king, and as the cook was
away, put her golden reel into it.

When the king found the reel at the bottom of it, he caused Allerleirauh to be summoned, and then he espied the white finger, and saw the ring which he had put on it during the dance. Then he grasped her by the hand, and held her fast, and when she wanted to release herself and run away, her mantle of fur opened a little, and the star-dress shone forth. The king clutched the mantle and tore it off. Then her golden hair shone forth, and she stood there in full splendor, and could no longer hide herself. And when she had washed the soot and ashes from her face, she was more beautiful than anyone who had ever been seen on earth. But the king said, you are my dear bride, and we will never more part from each other. Thereupon the marriage was solemnized, and they lived happily until their death.

Grimm Fairy Tale - Cinderella

2006-01-28T19:49:00.000-08:00

Cinderella
The wife of a rich man fell sick, and as she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you. Thereupon she closed her eyes and departed. Every day the maiden went out to her mother's grave, and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and by the time the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife.

The woman had brought with her into the house two daughters, who were beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart. Now began a bad time for the poor step-child. Is the stupid goose
to sit in the parlor with us, they said. He who wants to eat bread must earn it. Out with the kitchen-wench. They took her pretty clothes away from her, put an old grey bedgown on her, and gave her wooden shoes. Just look at the proud princess, how decked out she is, they cried, and laughed, and led her into the kitchen. There she had to do hard work from morning till night, get up
before daybreak, carry water, light fires, cook and wash. Besides this, the sisters did her every imaginable injury - they mocked her and emptied her peas and lentils into the ashes, so that she was
forced to sit and pick them out again. In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders. And as on that account she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her cinderella.

It happened that the father was once going to the fair, and he asked his two step-daughters what he should bring back for them. Beautiful dresses, said one, pearls and jewels, said the second. And you, cinderella, said he, what will you have.

Father break off for me the first branch which knocks against your hat on your way home. So he bought beautiful dresses, pearls and jewels for his two step-daughters, and on his way home, as he was riding through a green thicket, a hazel twig brushed against him and knocked off his hat. Then he broke off the branch and took it with him. When he reached home he gave his step-daughters the things which they had wished for, and to cinderella he gave the branch from the hazel-bush. Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother's grave and planted the branch on it, and wept so much that the tears fell down on it and watered it. And it grew and became a handsome tree. Thrice a day cinderella went and sat beneath it, and wept and prayed, and a little white bird always came on the tree, and if cinderella expressed a wish, the bird threw down to her what she had wished for.

It happened, however, that the king gave orders for a festival which was to last three days, and to which all the beautiful young girls in the country were invited, in order that his son might choose himself a bride. When the two step-sisters heard that they too were to appear among the number, they were delighted, called cinderella and said, comb our hair for us, brush our shoes and fasten our
buckles, for we are going to the wedding at the king's palace.

Cinderella obeyed, but wept, because she too would have liked to go with them to the dance, and begged her step-mother to allow her to do so. You go, cinderella, said she, covered in dust and dirt as you are, and would go to the festival. You have no clothes and shoes, and yet would dance. As, however, cinderella went on asking, the step-mother said at last, I have emptied a dish of lentils into the ashes for you, if you have picked them out again in two hours, you shall go with us.

The maiden went through the back-door into the garden, and called, you tame pigeons, you turtle-doves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to pick the good into the pot, the bad into the crop.

Then two white pigeons came in by the kitchen window, and afterwards the turtle-doves, and at last all the birds beneath the sky, came whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes.
And the pigeons nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick, pick, and the rest began also pick, pick, pick, pick, and gathered all the good grains into the dish. Hardly had one hour passed before they had finished, and all flew out again. Then the girl took the dish to her step-mother, and was glad, and believed that now she would be allowed to go with them to the festival.

But the step-mother said, no, cinderella, you have no clothes and you can not dance. You would only be laughed at. And as cinderella wept at this, the step-mother said, if you can pick two dishes of lentils out of the ashes for me in one hour, you shall go with us. And she thought to herself, that she most certainly cannot do again.

When the step-mother had emptied the two dishes of lentils amongst the ashes, the maiden went through the back-door into the garden and cried, you tame pigeons, you turtle-doves, and all you birds beneath the sky, come and help me to pick the good into the pot, the bad into the crop.

Then two white pigeons came in by the kitchen-window, and afterwards the turtle-doves, and at length all the birds beneath the sky, came whirring and crowding in, and alighted amongst the ashes. And the doves nodded with their heads and began pick, pick, pick, pick, and the others began also pick, pick, pick, pick, and gathered all the good seeds into the dishes, and before half an hour was over they had already finished, and all flew out again.

Then the maiden was delighted, and believed that she might now go with them to the wedding. But the step-mother said, all this will not help. You cannot go with us, for you have no clothes and can
not dance. We should be ashamed of you. On this she turned her back on cinderella, and hurried away with her two proud daughters.

As no one was now at home, cinderella went to her mother's grave beneath the hazel-tree, and cried -
shiver and quiver, little tree,
silver and gold throw down over me.

Then the bird threw a gold and silver dress down to her, and slippers embroidered with silk and silver. She put on the dress with all speed, and went to the wedding. Her step-sisters and the step-mother however did not know her, and thought she must be a foreign princess, for she looked so beautiful in the golden dress.

They never once thought of cinderella, and believed that she was sitting at home in the dirt, picking lentils out of the ashes. The prince approached her, took her by the hand and danced with her.
He would dance with no other maiden, and never let loose of her hand, and if any one else came to invite her, he said, this is my partner.

She danced till it was evening, and then she wanted to go home. But the king's son said, I will go with you and bear you company, for he wished to see to whom the beautiful maiden belonged.
She escaped from him, however, and sprang into the pigeon-house. The king's son waited until her father came, and then he told him that the unknown maiden had leapt into the pigeon-house. The old man thought, can it be cinderella. And they had to bring him an axe and a pickaxe that he might hew the pigeon-house to pieces, but no one was inside it.

And when they got home cinderella lay in her dirty clothes among the ashes, and a dim little oil-lamp was burning on the mantle-piece, for cinderella had jumped quickly down from the back of the pigeon-house and had run to the little hazel-tree, and there she had taken off her beautiful clothes and laid them on the grave, and the bird had taken them away again, and then she had seated herself in the kitchen amongst the ashes in her grey gown.

Next day when the festival began afresh, and her parents and the step-sisters had gone once more, cinderella went to the hazel-tree and said -
shiver and quiver, my little tree,
silver and gold throw down over me.
Then the bird threw down a much more beautiful dress than on the preceding day. And when cinderella appeared at the wedding in this dress, every one was astonished at her beauty. The king's
son had waited until she came, and instantly took her by the hand and danced with no one but her. When others came and invited her, he said, this is my partner. When evening came she wished
to leave, and the king's son followed her and wanted to see into which house she went. But she sprang away from him, and into the garden behind the house.

Therein stood a beautiful tall tree on which hung the most magnificent pears. She clambered so nimbly between the branches like a squirrel that the king's son did not know where she was gone. He waited until her father came, and said to him, the unknown maiden has escaped from me, and I
believe she has climbed up the pear-tree. The father thought, can it be cinderella. And had an axe brought and cut the tree down, but no one was on it.

And when they got into the kitchen, cinderella lay there among the ashes, as usual, for she had jumped down on the other side of the tree, had taken the beautiful dress to the bird on the little hazel-tree, and put on her grey gown.

On the third day, when the parents and sisters had gone away, cinderella went once more to her mother's grave and said to the little tree -
shiver and quiver, my little tree,
silver and gold throw down over me.
And now the bird threw down to her a dress which was more splendid and magnificent than any she had yet had, and the slippers were golden. And when she went to the festival in the dress, no one knew how to speak for astonishment. The king's son danced with her only, and if any one invited her to dance, he said this is my partner.
When evening came, cinderella wished to leave, and the king's son was anxious to go with her, but she escaped from him so quickly that he could not follow her. The king's son, however, had
employed a ruse, and had caused the whole staircase to be smeared with pitch, and there, when she ran down, had the maiden's left slipper remained stuck. The king's son picked it up, and it was
small and dainty, and all golden.

Next morning, he went with it to the father, and said to him, no one shall be my wife but she whose
foot this golden slipper fits. Then were the two sisters glad, for they had pretty feet. The eldest went with the shoe into her room and wanted to try it on, and her mother stood by. But she could not get her big toe into it, and the shoe was too small for her. Then her mother gave her a knife and said, cut the toe off, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot. The maiden cut the toe off, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. Then he took her on his his horse as his bride and rode away with her. They were obliged, however, to pass the grave, and there, on the hazel-tree,
sat the two pigeons and cried -

turn and peep, turn and peep,
there's blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you.

Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was trickling from it. He turned his horse round and took the false bride home again, and said she was not the true one, and that the other sister was to put the shoe on. Then this one went into her chamber and got her toes safely into the shoe, but her heel was too large. So her mother gave her a knife and said, cut a bit off your heel, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot. The maiden cut a bit off her heel, forced
her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. He took her on his horse as his bride, and rode away with her, but when they passed by the hazel-tree, the two pigeons
sat on it and cried -

turn and peep, turn and peep,
there's blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you.

He looked down at her foot and saw how the blood was running out of her shoe, and how it had stained her white stocking quite red. Then he turned his horse and took the false bride home again. This also is not the right one, said he, have you no other daughter. No, said the man, there is still a little stunted kitchen-wench which my late wife left behind her, but she cannot possibly be the bride. The king's son said he was to send her up to him, but the mother answered, oh, no, she is
much too dirty, she cannot show herself. But he absolutely insisted on it, and cinderella had to be called.

She first washed her hands and face clean, and then went and bowed down before the king's son, who gave her the golden shoe. Then she seated herself on a stool, drew her foot out of the heavy
wooden shoe, and put it into the slipper, which fitted like a glove. And when she rose up and the king's son looked at her face he recognized the beautiful maiden who had danced with him and cried, that is the true bride. The step-mother and the two sisters were horrified and became pale with rage, he, however, took cinderella on his horse and rode away with her. As they passed by the hazel-tree, the two white doves cried -

turn and peep, turn and peep,
no blood is in the shoe,
the shoe is not too small for her,
the true bride rides with you,

and when they had cried that, the two came flying down and placed themselves on cinderella's shoulders, one on the right, the other on the left, and remained sitting there.

When the wedding with the king's son was to be celebrated, the two false sisters came and wanted to get into favor with cinderella and share her good fortune. When the betrothed couple went to church, the elder was at the right side and the younger at the left, and the pigeons pecked out one eye from each of them. Afterwards as they came back the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each. And thus, for their wickedness and falsehood, they were punished with blindness all their days.

Pasted from <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/016.txt>

Grimm Fairy Tale - The 3 Little Men in The Wood

2006-01-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

There was once a man whose wife died, and a woman whose husband died, and the man had a daughter, and the woman also had a daughter. The girls were acquainted with each other, and went out walking together, and afterwards came to the woman in her house. Then said she to the man's daughter, listen, tell your father that I would like to marry him, and then you shall wash yourself in milk every morning, and drink wine, but my own daughter shall wash herself in water and drink water.

The girl went home, and told her father what the woman had said. The man said, what shall I do. Marriage is a joy and also a torment.

At length as he could come to no decision, he pulled off his boot, and said, take this boot, it has a hole in the sole of it. Go with it up to the loft, hang it on the big nail, and then pour water into it. If it hold the water, then I will again take a wife, but if it run through, I will not. The girl did as she was bid, but the water drew the hole together and the boot became full to the top.

She informed her father how it had turned out. Then he himself went up, and when he saw that she was right, he went to the widow and wooed her, and the wedding was celebrated.

The next morning, when the two girls got up, there stood before the man's daughter milk for her to wash in and wine for her to drink, but before the woman's daughter stood water to wash herself with and water for drinking. On the second morning, stood water for washing and water for drinking before the man's daughter as well as before the woman's daughter. And on the third morning stood water for washing and water for drinking before the man's daughter, and milk for washing and wine for drinking, before the woman's daughter, and so it continued.

The woman became her step-daughter's bitterest enemy, and day by day did her best to treat her still worse. She was also envious because her step-daughter was beautiful and lovable, and her own daughter ugly and repulsive.

Once, in winter, when everything was frozen as hard as a stone, and hill and vale lay covered with snow, the woman made a frock of paper, called her step-daughter, and said, here, put on this dress and go out into the wood, and fetch me a little basketful of strawberries - I have a fancy for some.

Good heavens, said the girl, no strawberries grow in winter. The ground is frozen, and besides the snow has covered everything. And why am I to go in this paper frock. It is so cold outside that one's very breath freezes. The wind will blow through the frock, and the thorns tear it off my body.

Will you contradict me, said the step-mother. See that you go, and do not show your face again until you have the basketful of strawberries. Then she gave her a little piece of hard bread, and said, this will last you the day, and thought, you will die of cold and hunger outside, and will never be seen again by me.

Then the maiden was obedient, and put on the paper frock, and went out with the basket. Far and wide there was nothing but snow, and not a green blade to be seen.

When she got into the wood she saw a small house out of which peeped three little men. She wished them good day, and knocked modestly at the door. They cried, come in, and she entered the room and seated herself on the bench by the stove, where she began to warm herself and eat her breakfast.

The little men said, give us some of it, too. Willingly, she said, and divided her piece of bread in two 'and gave them the half. They asked, what do you here in the forest in the winter time, in your thin dress. Ah, she answered, I am to look for a basketful of strawberries, and am not to go home until I can take them with me. When she had eaten her bread, they gave her a broom and said, sweep away the snow at the back door.

But when she was outside, the three little men said to each other, what shall we give her as she is so good, and has shared her bread with us. Then said the first, my gift is, that she shall every day grow more beautiful. The second said, my gift is, that gold pieces shall fall out of her mouth every time she speaks. The third said, my gift is, that a king shall come and take her to wife.
The girl, however, did as the little men had bidden her, swept away the snow behind the little house with the broom, and what did she find but real ripe strawberries, which came up quite dark-red out of the snow. In her joy she hastily gathered her basket full, thanked the little men, shook hands with each of them, and ran home to take her step-mother what she had longed for so much.

When she went in and said good-evening, a piece of gold at once fell out of her mouth. Thereupon she related what had happened to her in the wood, but with every word she spoke, gold pieces fell from her mouth, until very soon the whole room was covered with them.

Now look at her arrogance, cried the step-sister, to throw about gold in that way. But she was secretly envious of it, and wanted to go into the forest also to seek strawberries.

The mother said, no, my dear little daughter, it is too cold, you might freeze to death. However, as her daughter let her have no peace, the mother at last yielded, made her a magnificent coat of fur, which she was obliged to put on, and gave her bread-and-butter and cake for her journey.

The girl went into the forest and straight up to the little house. The three little men peeped out again, but she did not greet them, and without looking round at them and without speaking to them, she went awkwardly into the room, seated herself by the stove, and began to eat her bread-and-butter and cake. Give us some of it, cried the little men. But she replied, there is not enough for myself, so how can I give it away to other people.

When she had finished eating, they said, there is a broom for you, sweep it all clean in front of the back-door. Sweep for yourselves, she answered, I am not your servant. When she saw that they were not going to give her anything, she went out by the door.

Then the little men said to each other, what shall we give her as she is so
naughty, and has a wicked envious heart, that will never let her do a good turn to any one. The first said, I grant that she may grow uglier every day. The second said, I grant that at every word she says, a toad shall spring out of her mouth. The third said, I grant that she may die a miserable death. The maiden looked for strawberries outside, but as she found none, she went angrily home.

And when she opened her mouth, and was about to tell her mother what
had happened to her in the wood, with every word she said, a toad sprang out of her mouth, so that everyone was seized with horror of her.

Then the step-mother was still more enraged, and thought of nothing but how to do every possible injury to the man's daughter, whose beauty, however, grew daily greater.

At length she took a cauldron, set it on the fire, and boiled yarn in it. When it was boiled, she flung it on the poor girl's shoulder, and gave her an axe in order that she might go on the frozen river, cut a hole in the ice, and rinse the yarn. She was obedient, went thither and cut a hole in the ice. And while she was in the midst of her cutting, a splendid carriage came driving up, in which sat the king.

The carriage stopped, and the king asked, my child, who are you, and what are you doing here. I am a poor girl, and I am rinsing yarn. Then the king felt compassion, and when he saw that she was so very beautiful, he said to her, will you go away with me. Ah, yes, with all my heart, she answered, for she was glad to get away from the mother and sister.

So she got into the carriage and drove away with the king, andwhen they arrived at his palace, the wedding was celebrated with great pomp, as the little men had granted to the maiden. When a year was over, the young queen bore a son, and as the step-mother had heard of her great good-fortune, she came with her daughter to the palace and pretended that she wanted to pay her a visit.

But, when the king had gone out, and no one else was present, the wicked woman seized the queen by the head, and her daughter seized her by the feet, and they lifted her out of the bed, and threw her out of the window into the stream which flowed by.

Then the ugly daughter laid herself in the bed, and the old woman covered her up over her head. When the king came home again and wanted to speak to his wife, the old woman cried, hush, hush, that can't be now, she is lying in a violent sweat. You must let her rest to-day. The king suspected no evil, and did not come back again till next morning.

And as he talked with his wife and she answered him, with every word a toad leaped out, whereas formerly a piece of gold had fallen. Then he asked what that could be, but the old woman said that she had got that from the violent sweat, and would soon lose it again. During the night, however, the scullion saw a duck come swimming up the gutter, and it said -

king, what art thou doing now.
Sleepest thou, or wakest thou.
And as he returned no answer, it said -
and my guests, what may they do.
The scullion said -
they are sleeping soundly, too.
Then it asked again -
what does little baby mine.
He answered -
sleepeth in her cradle fine.

Then she went upstairs in the form of the queen, nursed the baby, shook up its little bed, covered it over, and then swam away again down the gutter in the shape of a duck. She came thus for two nights. On the third, she said to the scullion, go and tell the king to take his sword and swing it three times over me on the threshold. Then the scullion ran and told this to the king, who came with his sword and swung it thrice over the spirit, and at the third time, his wife stood before him strong, living, and healthy
as she had been before.

Thereupon the king was full of great joy, but he kept the queen hidden in a chamber until the sunday, when the baby was to be christened. And when it was christened he said, what does a person deserve who drags another out of bed and throws him in the water. The wretch deserves nothing better, answered the old woman, than to be taken and put in a barrel stuck full of nails, and rolled down hill into the water.

Then, said the king, you have pronounced your own sentence. And he ordered such a barrel to be brought, and the old woman to be put into it with her daughter, and then the top was hammered on, and the barrel rolled down hill until it went into the river.

Pasted from <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/010.txt>

Ebrie Lagoon Chart

2005-07-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

Ebrie Lagoon Chart 1

2005-07-01T18:09:00.000-07:00

Ebrie Lagoon

Say what? Geology and Medical Jargon exposed (by DWhidden)

2005-06-28T19:08:00.000-07:00

DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIT

* The Unit was designed to accomplish:

The extraction of underwater sediments in tropical regions;

Water purification in tropical regions.

*It was essential that the unit be tested when the water level reached its highest point. This water level makes it possible to achieve a geothermal capacity up to one hundred times greater than its hydroelectric potential.

-Geothermal: Of or relating to the internal heat of the earth.

-Capacity: Ability to perform or produce; capability.

-Hydroelectric: Of or relating to or used in the production of electricity by waterpower; "hydroelectric power"

* Sediments are explored and tested after being extracted from riverbeds

-Sediment is any particulate matter that can be transported by fluid flow and which eventually is deposited as a layer of solid particles on the bed or bottom of a body of water or other liquid. Deposited sediments are the source of sedimentary rocks, which can contain fossils of the inhabitants of the body of water that were, upon death, covered by accumulating sediment.

*Sediments are to be dissolved: the water reserves coming from the feeding channel showed that the sediments collected in the riverbed could not be dissolved using carbonic gas

-Channel: A tubular passage for liquids; a conduit.

-Reserve: Something kept back or saved for future use or a special purpose.

-Carbonic Gas: A colorless, odorless, incombustible gas, CO₂, formed during respiration, combustion, and organic decomposition and used in food refrigeration, carbonated beverages, inert atmospheres, fire extinguishers, and aerosols. Also called carbonic acid gas. (Carbon Dioxide)

* The stilling tank:

-Contained gases, steam or water

-Also contained pressurized methane which kept the rocks dry (presumably the heated rocks in the earths’ core that the water is being pumped through)

-Either the methane or the rocks were cooled off by a fluid derived by an external source

*There is an evaporation cycle of the water reserves, part of which is accomplished through a system of artificial distribution of hydraulic energy

-Evaporation: The process by which any substance is converted from a liquid state into, and carried off in, vapor; as, the evaporation of water.

-Hydraulic energy: Energy created by water under pressure.

*Water is purified by filtering the residues and classifying or separating the denser molecules

-A denser object (such as iron) will have less volume than an equal mass of some less dense substance. Volume is a quantification of how much space an object occupies.

-Light molecules stay near the top, and heavier, denser molecules sink lower and lower.

*The denser molecules are obtained by using a spiral turbine operated on hydraulic pressure

- A Turbine is a rotary engine that extracts energy from a fluid flow. The simplest turbines have one moving part, a rotor-blade assembly. Moving fluid acts on the blades to spin them and impart energy to the rotor. Early turbine examples are windmills and water wheels.

- Hydraulics is a branch of science and engineering concerned with the use of liquids to perform mechanical tasks. Typically, the fluid used in a hydraulic system is an incompressible liquid such as water or oil. Pressure is applied by a piston to fluid in a cylinder, causing the fluid to press on another piston that delivers energy to a load.

*The recuperated irrigation water is treated (i.e., level of toxic residue reduced) while being retained in a chamber equipped with bidirectional valves attached to 2 delivery meters capable of alternating their energy forces

-Irrigate: Supply water to (land or crops) by means of channels. (See p.20 Frag)

-Chamber: An enclosed space or compartment.

-Bidirectional: Moving or operating in two usually opposite directions

-Valve: Any of various devices that regulate the flow of gases, liquids, or loose materials through piping or through apertures by opening, closing, or obstructing ports or passageways.

-Delivery: The act of transferring to another.

-Meter: Any of various devices designed to measure time, distance, speed, or intensity or indicate and record or regulate the amount or volume, as of the flow of a gas or an electric current.

*A single-cylinder turbine upstream and a final-phase purifier operating with the help of a magnetic field downstream

-Purifier: An apparatus for removing impurities

- A Magnetic Field is said to exist in a region if a force can be exerted on a magnet. If a compass needle is deflected when it is put at a particular location, we say a magnetic field exists at that point, and the strength of the field is measured by the strength of the force of the compass needle. All known magnetic fields are caused by the movement of electrical charges.

FLAWS IN THE UNIT - KHARTOUM

Problem #1: The sorting turbine didn’t work in the main delivery meter

*Because: One of the cylinders (the main cylinder) in the turbine was tilted too far in relation to the spirals axis

*Result: The water reserves headed for the discharge channel interflowed with those from the main feeding channel

-I.E., the proceeds from the reserves went into the recuperated water and vice versa.

Solution: Replace the defective cylinder and fill the sorting spinner by hand

Problem #2: The water reserves coming from the feeding channel showed that the sediments collected in the riverbed could not be dissolved using carbonic gas

* Result: The headwaters of the Blue Nile could not be tested.

Solution: Move on to Cambodia, where the subterranean waters of the MeKong offer a saturated superficial layer with a greatly reduced level of oxygen

EQUIPMENT LISTED

*2 Channels: Feeding and Discharge

*Stilling Tank

*2 or more Turbines: Mention of a ‘main turbine’; also a ‘sorting’ and ‘spiral’

*2 or more Cylinders: Mention of a ‘main cylinder’

*A Chamber equipped with Bidirectional Valves attached to 2 Delivery Meters

*1 of the 2 Delivery Meters described as a Main meter

WHAT CAN I PIECE TOGETHER ABOUT HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS?

*They sought to produce electricity through the heat of the earth’s interior rather than with waterpower

*The unit was extracting sediment from the riverbed (to test the quality of the water?)

*The geologists are using carbon dioxide to dissolve the sediments

*This Carbon Dioxide is contained in a stilling tank

*The sediments of the Blue Nile did not dissolve properly because of high levels of oxygen

*The water needs to be evaporated in order to be purified (?)

*The treatment of the recuperated water occurs in the chamber

*The recuperated water and the reserve water must be kept separate

CARLA VAN SAIKAN

Alluvium is soil land deposited by a river or other running water. A river is continually picking up and dropping solid particles of rock and dirt from its bed throughout its length. Where the river flow is fast, more particles are picked up than dropped. Where the river flow is slow, more particles are dropped than picked up. Areas where more particles are dropped are called alluvial or flood plains, and the dropped particles are called alluvium.

Triazolam (Halcion^®, Novodorm^®, Songar^®) belongs to benzodiazepine group of drugs. It is commonly prescribed for insomnia, and its short half-life (approximately 3 hours) makes it ideal for this use because it thereby avoids morning drowsiness. Questions exist about its safety because it has a fairly narrow therapeutic window. Also, some have suggested that it causes hallucinations, amnesia, paranoia and verbal and physical aggression. On October 2, 1991, the Committee on the Safety of Medicines (CSM) banned sales of Triazolam in the UK after concluding that it had a higher frequency of psychiatric side-effects than other hypnotics (sleeping pills).

Lobe: A subdivision of a body organ or part bounded by fissures, connective tissue, or other structural boundaries. Upper lobe here refers to the lungs.

Alveolus: A tiny, thin-walled, capillary-rich sac in the lungs where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place. Also called air sac.

Ablation is defined as the removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes. Often used in the context of laser ablation, a process by which the molecular bonds of a material are dissolved by a laser. In medicine, ablation is the same as removal of a part of biological tissue, usually by surgery.

Pneumonectomy: Surgical removal of all or part of a lung.

Thoracoplasty: Surgical removal of part of the ribs to cause the collapse of a diseased lung.

Tuberculosis: An infectious disease of humans and animals caused by the tubercle bacillus and characterized by the formation of tubercles on the lungs and other tissues of the body, often developing long after the initial infection.

TONI VAN SAIKANS’ MEDICAL RECORD

B.P.: Normal ranges for blood pressure in adult humans are:

Systolic between 90 and 135 mmHg (12 to 18 kPa)
Diastolic between 50 and 90 mmHg (7 to 12 kPa)

Cholesterol:

The American Heart Association (http://www.americanheart.org/cholesterol/about.jsp) provides a set of guidelines for total (fasting) blood cholesterol levels and risk for heart disease:

Level mg/dL	Level mmol/L	Interpretation
<200	<5.2	Desirable level corresponding to lower risk for heart disease
200-239	5.2-6.2	Borderline high risk
>240	>6.2	High risk

Hemoglobin: Hemoglobin is the protein molecule in red blood cells which carries oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues and returns carbon dioxide from the tissues to the lungs. The iron contained in hemoglobin is responsible for the red color of blood.

What are normal hemoglobin values?

· Children: 11-13 gm/dl

· Adult males: 14-18 gm/dl

Adult women: 12-16 gm/dl

Ectomorph: An individual having a lean, slightly muscular body build in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate.

Leukocytosis is an elevation of the white blood cell count (the leukocyte count) above the normal range. The normal adult human leukocyte count in peripheral blood is 4.4-10.8 x 10⁹/L. A white blood count of 11.0 or more suggests leukocytosis. Leukocytosis is very common in acutely ill patients. It occurs in response to a wide variety of conditions, including viral, bacterial, fungal, or parasitic infection, cancer, and exposure to certain medications or chemicals.

Blood Type: One of many groups into which a person's blood can be categorized, based on the presence or absence of specific antigens in the blood. Blood type is inherited.

Type AB people have red blood cells with both antigens A and B, and do not produce antibodies against either substance in their serum. Therefore, a person with type AB blood can safely receive any ABO type blood and is called a "universal receiver", but cannot donate blood except to corresponding AB type people.

Parenchyma: Anatomy. The tissue characteristic of an organ, as distinguished from associated connective or supporting tissues.

Scar Tissue: Dense fibrous connective tissue that forms over a healed wound or cut.

In Munchausen syndrome, the sufferer feigns, exaggerates, or creates symptoms of illnesses in himself in order to gain attention, sympathy, and comfort from medical personnel. The role of "patient" is a familiar and comforting one, and it fills a psychological need in the man or woman with Munchausen's. There is some controversy on the exact causes of the syndrome, but an increased occurrence has been reported in healthcare professionals and close family members of people with a chronic illness.

Potassium level: The normal range is 3.7 to 5.2 mEq/L.

Protein: Finding protein in the urine is probably the best test for screening for kidney disease, although there may be a number of causes for an increased protein level in the urine.

Casts: Tubules in the kidneys secrete proteins. Under some circumstances, these proteins precipitate out to form little cylindrical impressions of the tubules called casts. If anything is present in the tubules at the time, it gets trapped in the protein casts.

Urinary MHPG: Early case studies demonstrated that in bipolar patients, urinary MHPG levels were lower during the depressed phase and higher during the manic phase than during periods of euthymia.

Calcium level: If a person is eating a normal diet, the expected amount of calcium in the urine is 100 to 300 mg/day. If eating a diet low in calcium, the amount of calcium in the urine will be 50 to 150mg/day.

Myopia, also known as nearsightedness or short-sightedness, is a refractive defect of the eye, where the person affected usually can see nearby objects clearly but distant objects appear blurred. Myopia of 6.00 diopters or greater is considered high, or severe, myopia.

The Babinski reflex or Babinski sign is a reflex that can identify disease of the spinal cord and brain.

Paludism: The morbid phenomena produced by dwelling among marshes; malarial disease or disposition. (Basically, Malaria)

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Answers.com

AskOxford

Bio.Edu

English-dictionary.us

Engnet Engineering dictionary

Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia

USGS.com

Wikipedia

Links to maps & images on Cambodia

2005-06-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Travel Description
Tales of Asia - Mekong Delta
Mekong Flooding
Mekong Delta 2000 Flooding
Using Remote sensing to learn about the riverbed
Using remotely sensed data to detect changes of riverbank in Mekong River, Vietnam
Mekong Delta satmap
World Guide - Satellite Image - Tonle Sap (Cambodia) and the Mekong delta (Vietnam)
Children are the main victims of the flooding
KryssTal : People Photos - Children in the Mekong Delta

Essence of The Geologist (by DWhidden)

2005-06-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Common Personality Traits:

*Eccentric

*Constantly correcting each other

*Not generally as interested in money or perks as in the engagement of disproving others theories and the game of debate

*Heady and critical

*Think of themselves as "hard men", like mountaineers or loggers

Props:

*Patrick stressed to me that geologists treat their "toys" with the same kind of reverence and care that a doctor would with his tools

*Brunton - A high-powered compass worn on the hip in a leather case; Patrick referred me to Brunton.com as a popular consumer website for geologists

*They ALWAYS carry a pocket Field notebook

*Clineometer - a tool that measures the steepness of a slope and is traditionally hung around the neck on a red string

*They always have several expensive mechanical pencils that they carry in the field vests

DRESS:

*They dress functionally, not worried about appearance

*Field vests

*High hiking boots - red wing (?)

*Wool socks and sandals

OTHER:

*In order to expand our knowledge, Patrick also referred me to:

-The Dictionary of Geological terms

-The USGS (United States Geological Survey) website

Fragments Breakdown 1

2005-06-28T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fragments Breakdown 1

Fragments Breakdown 2

2005-06-28T18:59:00.000-07:00

Fragments Breakdown 2

Fragments Breakdown 3

2005-06-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

Fragments Breakdown 3

Cambodia background & history - overview

2005-06-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

The Mekong & Tonle Sap – Lifeline and River
When the Mekong swells in summer, it backs up into Tonle Sap, filling a 60 mile channel and lake near Angkor that feeds a nation. It almost triples in size to 3 thousand square miles. Tonle Sap is a wonder of hydrology that prevents flooding on the Mekong delta, provides irrigation for crops and enriches a lake with an abundant supply of freshwater fish.

Angkor – the Ancient Empire of Cambodia
Angkor, the ancient capital of the Khymer empire is one of the archeological wonders of the world. Angkor Wat covers 200 acres and is the largest religious monument ever built. French naturalist Henri Mouhot stumbled upon the ruins in 1860 and wrote that "it is grander than anything in Greece or Rome.
ANGKOR WAT Angkor Wat was the "mountain temple" at the heart of the city, home of the Hindu gods and center of the earthly kingdom in which the king was regarded as sacred. It was built by Suryavarman II in the 12th century . Perhaps the greatest treasure of Angkor Wat is bas-relief that surrounds the walls of the outer gallery. It is the world's longest such continuous carving and narrates stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, legends of Vishnu and is adorned with hundreds of carvings of devatas and asparas -- celestial women.
ANGKOR THOM Angkor Thom, built in the late 11th century. The moat surrounding it was once stocked with crocodiles.
Its five monumental gates, each more than 65 feet high, are dominated by four carved faces of the Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, facing north, south, east and west. In front of each gate are giant statues of 54 gods on the left, 54 demons on the right.
THE BAYON The Bayon rests in the center of Angkor Thom. It is a massive cluster of towers carved with 172 faces of the bodhisattva. Its interior walls are covered with bas-reliefs showing 11,000 figures engaged in battles, ceremonial pageants or the everyday life of 12th century Angkor.

WATERWAYS
One of the major success of the Angkor Empire was due to its mastery over the control of water from the Mekong River. Being situated in the tropical Monsoon zone, the Angkor was subjected to a wet season with heavy rainfall during Monsoon and a dry season during the off-Monsoon period.
Due to their engineering genius, the ancient Khmer built extensive irrigation and drainage system in order to manage the excessive water from the flood. This water was stored in the huge reservoirs such as the East and West Baray, and irrigated to the farmlands during the dry period. In this way, the Angkor were able to cultivate and harvest rice crops two or three times in one year. Such a high productivity of rice crops in a year helped to strengthen the country's economy significantly, and thus enhanced its prosperity. This enabled the god-king of the Angkor Empire to mobilize large number of laborers and slaves to undergo temples construction, several of which required over ten thousands of laborers and took them from two to three decades to complete.
In addition, the Angkor kings were able to recruit manpower to serve in military which play a major role, not only in defending the throne, but in invading the neighbors. The Angkor kingdom expanded its territory vigorously and became a strong regional empire.
The two major reservoirs at the Angkor are the East and West Baray. The East Baray has long been dry whereas the West Baray is still in use today. Two more reservoirs had been discovered recently by the aerial photographs.
It was estimated by George Grosliers, a French archaeologist, that the total agricultural land of the Angkor Empire was about 70,000 hectares. Being used to cultivate crop two or three times in one year, the land was able to support the densely populated Angkor kingdom. This mastery over the water is one of the major factor for the rise of Khmer Civilization.

HISTORY OVERVIEW
Most Cambodians consider themselves to be Khmers, whose Angkor Empire extended over much of Southeast Asia and reached its zenith between the 10th and 13th centuries. Subsequently, attacks by the Thai and Cham (from present-day Vietnam) weakened the empire ushering in a long period of decline. In 1863, the king of Cambodia placed the country under French protection; it became part of French Indochina in 1887. Following Japanese occupation in World War II, Cambodia became independent within the French Union in 1949 and fully independent in 1953. After a five-year struggle, Communist Khmer Rouge forces captured Phnom Penh in April 1975 and ordered the evacuation of all cities and towns; at least 1.5 million Cambodians died from execution, enforced hardships, or starvation during the Khmer Rouge regime under POL POT. A December 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside, led to a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off almost 13 years of civil war. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire, which was not fully respected by the Khmer Rouge. UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some semblance of normalcy and the final elements of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in early 1999. Factional fighting in 1997 ended the first coalition government, but a second round of national elections in 1998 led to the formation of another coalition government and renewed political stability. The July 2003 elections were relatively peaceful, but it took one year of negotiations between contending political parties before a coalition government was formed. Nation-wide local elections are scheduled for 2007 and national elections for 2008.

Article on insect eating in Cambodia

2005-06-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Spiderwomen serve up Cambodia's creepy caviar http://abc.net.au/news/indepth/featureitems/s664704.htm

They're black, hairy, have eight legs and are delicious when fried with garlic and butter. Originally eaten out of necessity, the burrowing beasts have become a gastronomic landmark of the Skuon region.
First unearthed by starving Cambodians in the dark days of the Khmer Rouge "killing fields" rule, Skuon's spiders have transformed from the vital sustenance of desperate refugees into a choice national delicacy. Black, hairy, and packing vicious, venom-soaked fangs, the burrowing arachnids common to the jungle around this bustling market town do not appear at first sight to be the caviar of Cambodia. But for many residents of Skuon, the "a-ping" - as the breed of palm-sized tarantula is known in Khmer - are a source of fame and fortune in an otherwise impoverished farming region in the east of the war-ravaged southeast Asian nation. "On a good day, I can sell between 100 and 200 spiders," said Tum Neang, a 28-year-old spider-seller who supports her entire family by hawking the creepy-crawlies, deep fried in garlic and salt, to the people who flock to Skuon for a juicy morsel. At around 300 riel (eight US cents) a spider, the eight-legged snack industry provides a tidy income in a country where around one third of people live below a poverty line of $1 per day. The dish's genesis is also a poignant reminder of Cambodia's bloody past, particularly under the Khmer Rouge, whose brutal four years in power from 1975-1979 left an estimated 1.7 million people dead, many through torture and execution. Turning back the clock hundreds of years, Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist guerrillas emptied Cambodia's vibrant cities and destroyed businesses and universities in a bid create a totally agrarian, peasant society. For the millions forced at gunpoint into the fields, grubs and insects such as spiders, crickets, wasps and "konteh long" - the giant water beetles found in lakes near the Vietnamese border - were what kept them alive. "When people fled into the jungle to get away from Pol Pot's troops, they found these spiders and had to eat them because they were so hungry," said Sim Yong, a 40-year-old mother of five. "Then they discovered they were so delicious," she said, proffering a plate piled high with hundreds of the greasy fried arachnids. "And our spiders are by far the best in Cambodia."It's the taste For Roeun Sarin, a 35-year-old minibus taxi passenger on his way to Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, the Skuon spider is definitely a matter of taste, not history. "I cannot go through Skuon without having a few spiders, I love them so much," he said, as yet another crispy tarantula disappeared into his mouth. "They taste a bit like crickets, only much better," he added.
"They taste a bit like crickets, only much better..."
Meanwhile, in the service station in the centre of town, the ebb and flow of Skuon life continues as more minibuses full of spider-starved Phnom Penh residents pull up, to be besieged by a cluster of excited spider-sellers. Travellers from the capital, 60 km (38 miles) to the southwest, often buy dozens of the spiders at a time, fresh from the soil around Skuon, rather than wait for what might be inferior produce in the Phnom Penh markets. Conservationists and vegetarians might blanche at the relentless pursuit of so many spiders for the sake of a snack, but locals are confident the arachnid population will hold up. Indeed, the only time a crisis threatened was around the Millennium when an extra-large number of spider-eaters passed through Skuon on their way to celebrate the New Year at Angkor, the stunning 1000-year-old temple complex in the northwest. Say goodbye to backache According to aficionado Tum Neang, the best spider is one plucked straight from its burrow and pan fried with lashings of garlic and salt over a traditional wood fire until its skin goes a deep red-brown colour. Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside, it should then be served piping hot. But the spider's remarkable popularity does not stop with its taste. Like many of her fellow Cambodians, Chor Rin, a 40-year-old market stall trader, swears by its medicinal properties - especially when mushed up in a rice wine cocktail. "It's particularly good for back ache and children with breathing problems," she said, dipping a glass into a jar of murky brown liquid, at the bottom of which sits a rotting mass of hairy black legs and bloated spider bellies. "People could not afford medicine under the Khmer Rouge so they had to use traditional medicines. "They drank it and it made them feel stronger. "With the wine, it's very important they still have their fangs or the medicine loses its power," she said.
"With the wine, it's very important they still have their fangs..."
For truckers making the long trip up to Cambodia's northern reaches, a bracing slug of the liquor is an obligatory tonic, and a litre of top grade spider wine can fetch as much as $2, a huge sum in local terms. Prices of fried spiders in Phnom Penh are also on the rise as supply struggles to keep pace with demand - although it looks as though it will be some time before non-Cambodians cotton on. "They are becoming more and more popular, but I don't think there's much demand from Europeans yet," said spider-trader Chea Khan.

The Khmer Rouge - how Cambodia was "re-organised"

2005-06-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

KHMER ROUGE – Capture of Pnomh Penh
April 17, 1975 - thousands of Phnom Penh residents celebrate in the streets as victorious Khmer Rouge troops enter the capitol
- A great relief that the five-year civil war had now come to an end
- ordered people to abandon their homes and leave Phnom Penh - by mid-afternoon hundreds of thousands of people were on the move
"The Americans are going to bomb the city!"
- No exceptions - all residents, young and old, had to evacuate asap
- no real American plans to attack the city
a ploy to get people into the countryside
Khmer Rouge believed that cities were living and breathing tools of capitalism
KR cadres referred to Phnom Penh as "the great prostitute of the Mekong." (Chandler, The Tragedy of Cambodian History, 247
to create the ideal communist society, all people would have to live and work in the countryside as peasants
Peasants = simple, uneducated, hard-working and not prone to exploiting others. Their way of life had not changed for centuries, yet they always managed to survive. It was this perception that caused the Khmer Rouge to view peasants - old people, to use their political jargon - as the ideal communists for the new Cambodian state.
The city dwellers of Phnom Penh and other Cambodian cities, on the other hand, were seen as new people (or "April 17 people"). New people were the root of all capitalist evil in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge. It didn't matter if you were a teacher, a tailor, a civil servant or a monk: new people were the embodiment of capitalism and the enemy of communism
EVACUATION OF CITIES AND OTHER "REFORMS"
new rules that were being imposed by Angka ("The Organization") - a secretive Khmer Rouge organisation
- religion, money and private ownership were all banned
- communications with the outside world elimated
- family relationships dismantled

As was often said by the Khmer Rouge, 2000 years of Cambodian history had now come to an end; April 17 was the beginning of Year Zero for the new Cambodia: Democratic Kampuchea (DK).

Life under the Khmer Rouge

2005-06-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

WORK CAMPS
One main goal behind resettling urban residents into the countryside was to build a new Cambodia focused on agricultural success

- "four-year plan" in which Cambodians
expected to produce an average national yield of 3 metric tons of rice per hectare (1.4 tons per acre)
pre-Khmer Rouge, peacetime Cambodia, the average national yield was only one metric ton of rice per hectare
To meet these new demands - strict policies where workers labored in the fields for 12 hours a day without adequate rest or food. Many new people lacked any experience in manual labor and became ill and died
Khmer Rouge favored the traditional medicine of the peasants and hilltribes over modern western medicine. Those new people who survived but were not well enough to work often vanished
"Keeping new people is no benefit," so the Khmer Rouge slogan went; "Losing them is no loss." The lives of new people were seen as having little to no value, so even the most minor infraction was enough reason to get sent to a killing field.
- foraging for extra food was a capital offense
but daily food allowance was so low it would cause hundreds of thousands of people to starve to death
because family relationships were now banned (for parents exploited their children, so the argument went), associating with a relative without the permission of Angka could get you killed.
Speaking French is a capital offence
- The educated, those who wore glasses, practicing Buddhists - among those condemned to die
Families with connections to previous Cambodian governments were especially susceptible to ill treatment; while former soldiers and civil servants were usually summarily executed,

Those Cambodians who knew they could be labeled as an enemy (the educated, monks, government officials, business owners, etc.) had no choice but to cut off all ties to their past and pretend to be an illiterate peasant. If you could convince the Khmer Rouge you were one of the old people, you might survive, but if you were caught it would mean certain death.
Because Angka banned family relationships, the Khmer Rouge often took advantage of children and molded them into fanatical communists. Young children were seen as being pure and untainted by capitalism and family influence. From an early age children were propagandized and brainwashed to believe in nothing but Angka - even their parents might become their worst enemies.- children would spy on their parents or report on their families' activities during the Lon Nol regime. If parents were disguising themselves as uneducated peasants, their children would be rewarded for identifying them as enemies of the state. Children received expanded privileges under Angka as their parents were taken away to die. In some farming collectives there were so many adolescent Khmer Rouge cadres it seemed their were no adults running the camps.

- When Cambodians weren't working in the fields they were being lectured by Khmer Rouge cadres in daily "livelihood meetings" (prachum chivapheap).
- propaganda sessions where people could be indoctrinated into Angka's communist ideals.
- opportunities for people to confess their past political and ideological sins, as well as to rat out fellow Cambodians. As Ong Thong Hoeung tells David Chandler in The Tragedy of Cambodian History, "Politics were everything. Political formation dominated every other activity." Ong goes on to say
They [Khmer Rouge political cadres] attacked the individualist idea successively, in material terms, in terms of thought, and in terms of feelings. Materially, we had to denounce those who had more than the people. In terms of thought, each of us had to keep an eye on everyone else, to disclose any attitude that didn't conform to the line of the party. Everything was interpreted: words, gestures, attitudes. Sadness was a sign of spiritual confusion, joy a sign of individualism, [while] an indecisive point of view indicated a petty bourgeois intellectualism." (Chandler, 284)
Unfortunately, many Cambodians saw these livelihood meetings as opportunities to confess their pasts and be redeemed in the eyes of the Khmer Rouge, not unlike people confessing to a priest at a Christian church. If they confessed, they were rewarded by applause and praise, perhaps an embrace from the Khmer Rouge cadres in attendance. Later that evening (or soon afterward - it was only a matter of time), they would then be escorted quietly from the camp and executed.
The quality of life in these farm cooperative varied greatly from district to district; overall, though, very few Cambodians were spared from suffering, misery, starvation or the threat of death. Conditions worsened in 1977 and 1978 as Angka increased demands on rice production. With the passage of time it became more and more difficult for malnourished Cambodians to farm efficiently. To make matters worse, the Khmer Rouge's distain of technology made it next to impossible for workers to reach their increased rice quotas when forced to farm by hand only. Even if a particular collective farm met its rice quota, this didn't mean they would be rewarded with a proper diet. The bulk of the rice was earkmarked for Khmer Rouge soldiers and political cadre. New people could only eat the scraps that were given to them; if they were caught supplementing their diets with grass or even insects, they too would be sent to the killing fields.

History - End of Khmer Rouge - Present

2005-06-28T18:49:00.000-07:00

HISTORY: End of Khmer Rouge to present day Cambodia
early months of 1979 were marked by chaos and confusion.
In many areas, no one knew about the fighting with Vietnam; in some towns villagers awoke one morning to find that the Khmer Rouge had suddenly vanished in the night. Others found themselves caught, in the crossfire of battle. Still others were held captive as slaves and porters by the retreating Khmer Rouge. All semblance of order vanished.
As the Khmer Rouge withdrew, confiscated and destroyed rice to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Vietnamese.
rotted in the fields as liberated Cambodians abandoned their collectives en masse. Some returned to their homes from the days before the revolution. Hundreds of thousands of others fled toward Thailand. By October and November 1979, what had been a trickle of refugees became a torrent. The terrible mismanagement by the Khmer Rouge, the war and the dislocation had suddenly brought a new agony to Cambodia: Famine.
- The refugees who poured into Thailand were a testimony to the torment: skeletal apparitions cloaked in tattered rags; children with brittle limbs and distended stomachs; weary mothers, their breasts dry from malnutrition, clutching starving infants who had not the strength to lift their heads. Witnesses to the exodus grappled for a way to describe what they saw. They could only invoke the names of Auschwitz, of Dachau, of Belsen. A brace of crude, fetid refugee camps sprung up along the Thai border. Hundreds died in the first horrid weeks, their bodies laid to rest in mass graves.
- A massive campaign to aid the Cambodians took shape. The United Nations, the Red Cross, and a brace of smaller organizations began providing food and medical assistance to the refugees at the border. But inside Cambodia, providing aid was more difficult. Despite the appalling brutality of Pol Pot's regime, the international community still considered the Khmer Rouge to be the legitimate government of the country. Heng Samrin was seen as a puppet, brought to power by an invading foreign army. The U.N. refused to confer recognition on the new government.
- The Phnom Penh government's bitterness toward the U.N. was compounded by the fact that the relief efforts along the Thai border were clearly aiding the Khmer Rouge. Some of the refugee camps, in fact, were under direct control of the Khmer Rouge. Civilians trapped in those camps were in desperate need of food, but there was no way to insure that any aid they received would not ultimately fall into the hands of Khmer Rouge guerrillas.
- Similarly, there were also concerns that aid sent to Phnom Penh might wind up in the hands of Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese often seemed to be deliberately hampering efforts to provide aid. The few relief officials who were allowed into Phnom Penh were not allowed to set up radio communications, and since there were no working telephone lines out of Phnom Penh, the only outside contact was through the daily Red Cross flight to Bangkok. They were instructed not to speak to anyone in the street, and the government's propaganda radio accused them of being spies. The government also insisted that the distribution of aid be handled not by international personnel, but by their own officials. The government also refused to allow any aid to be shipped overland from Thailand.
- Ultimately, much of the aid that did reach the interior of the country was distributed along the Thai border to Cambodians who carried it back into their own country in oxcarts and on rickety bicycles. While malnutrition continued to be a problem, by the end of 1979 the worst of the food shortages had passed.
- As the months passed, the Vietnamese consolidated their hold on Cambodia. By the end of the year, there were nearly 225,000 Vietnamese troops occupying the country. But as time passed, many Cambodians began to suspect that the Vietnamese had no intention of ever leaving. Others noted bitterly that many, if not most, of the officials of the new government were former Khmer Rouge; the new government even continued to celebrate the anniversary of the Khmer Rouge takeover as a national holiday. And while conditions inside the country had improved infinitely since the horrors of previous years, Heng Samrin's government was frequently accused of widespread human rights violations.
- Along the Thai border, the remaining Khmer Rouge forces soon regrouped and stepped up guerrilla attacks against the Vietnamese. Prince Sihanouk(VIETNAM), meanwhile, withdrew from the Khmer Rouge and announced the formation of his own resistance group, and Son Sann, a former Prime Minister under Lon Nol, formed a third group. The Khmer Rouge, with extensive support from China, were the strongest of the three groups militarily. But they could scarcely hope to win much support diplomatically. The United States and other Western nations were determined to keep the Vietnamese isolated politically, but to do so by supporting the Khmer Rouge was virtually unthinkable. The solution ultimately reached by the West was scarcely better. Under unrelenting pressure from the United States, the three groups banded together into a single coalition in 1982 -- with Sihanouk once again serving as the titular head.
- As the Third Indochina War dragged on, a pattern soon became apparent. During the rainy season, the guerrillas would step up their activity, only to be driven back by Vietnamese offensives during the dry season. The refugee camps, often used as bases by the guerrillas, frequently came under artillery fire from the Vietnamese; once again innocent women, men, and children were caught in the middle.
- Within Cambodia, a sense of normalcy slowly returned. But the coalition continued to occupy Cambodia's seat in the U.N., and the crushing effects of war and international embargo kept the country one of the poorest in the world. In 1987, per capita income was estimated to be only $160 annually -- ranking 195th out of the world's 203 countries. It was a situation that could not continue indefinitely. The isolation carried a heavy price for Vietnam as well as Cambodia. Bogged down by the continuing fighting, and faced with the prospect of diminishing Soviet support as the global political situation changed, in June 1988 the Vietnamese announced plans to begin a gradual troop withdrawal. Their stated goal was to have all of their forces out of Cambodia by 1990.
- The Vietnamese announcement cleared the way for real progress toward peace. In July 1988, leaders of the four warring factions held their first face-to-face meeting, in Indonesia. The talks were inconclusive, but they did pave the way for future progress.
- The announcement of a Vietnamese withdrawal had another effect, as well: it sent supporters of the guerrilla coalition scrambling for a new policy. After years of propping up an alliance formed around the Khmer Rouge, they were now faced with the horrible prospect that Pol Pot might return to power in the vacuum created by the Vietnamese withdrawal. They had forgotten the old adage: Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.
- As the Vietnamese troops pulled out, however, the situation on the battlefield remained largely unchanged. The Phnom Penh government's army consisted of about 35,000 troops; they held their own in most areas, and the guerrillas made only minor inroads into their territory.
- Gradually a framework for peace began to emerge. In 1990 the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council put forth a plan calling for the creation of a Supreme National Council (SNC) to be composed of six representatives (two from each faction) of the guerrillas. As negotiations continued, a series of ceasefires were declared and more or less ignored. A formal ceasefire was finally adopted in May 1991, and despite constant violations by the Khmer Rouge, the agreement held.
- Norodom Sihanouk, meanwhile, after "retiring" and "returning from retirement" several times, was elected to a position as the thirteenth member of the SNC, as its nonvoting chairman.
- On October 23, 1991, the agreement was at last signed and formally accepted by all sides. The plan called for each army to demobilize 70% of their troops, while the interim functioning of the government would be handled by the U.N. until elections could be held in May 1993. It was the largest and costliest peacekeeping operation ever undertaken by the U.N., calling for nearly 22,000 soldiers and administrators.
- It was also in October 1991 that an internal shakeup within the Phnom Penh government led to the removal of Heng Samrin from his position as General Secretary of the communist party. Samrin, who had opposed a U.N. role in Cambodia, was replaced by Chea Sim. Hun Sen, who had long held the post of Foreign Minister, was chosen to represent the Phnom Penh government in the upcoming election for Premier. Like Heng Samrin, Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge cadre who had defected from the Eastern Zone in 1977.
- By November 1991, U.N. personnel began arriving in force. Sihanouk, too, returned to Cambodia, greeted by cheering crowds. Khmer Rouge representatives to the SNC arrived as well, but were greeted less warmly: their villa was attacked by a mob, and Khieu Samphan, the leader of their delegation, was beaten and nearly murdered. He fled the capital in an armored car.
- Against this uncertain backdrop, the U.N. began the massive task of repatriating the nearly 370,000 refugees from the camps in Thailand. Sporadic fighting continued in the countryside, however, and the Khmer Rouge grew increasingly intransigent. They first denied U.N. peacekeepers access to areas under their control, then refused to disarm. The Phnom Penh government, too, was accused of violence directed at Sihanouk and Son Sann loyalists. Their actions, however, paled in comparison to those of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge began a campaign of harassment directed at the U.N. Several peacekeepers were kidnapped, and others were murdered. Several civilians, particularly ethnic Vietnamese, were also massacred. In April 1993, the Khmer Rouge closed their offices in Phnom Penh and sent a letter to the U.N. withdrawing from the peace process, under the pretense that there were millions of Vietnamese still in the country illegally. Still, however, the other parties moved forward as planned. By the end of April, the last of the refugees had been repatriated.
- As the Khmer Rouge stepped up their threats to disrupt the elections scheduled to begin on May 23, many observers feared that the specter of violence would keep the voter turnout low, enabling the Khmer Rouge to claim that the winner of the elections did not in truth have wide popular support.
- The dire predictions turned out to be unfounded. Despite the threats, 4.2 million of the 4.7 million registered voters went to the polls. The FUNCINPEC party, headed by Sihanouk's son Norodom Ranariddh, won 58 of the 120 seats in the National Assembly; the Phnom Penh faction won 51 seats, Son Sann's faction won 10 seats, and a right-wing party won the remaining seat. Initially, however, the Phnom Penh government contested the results, and it was not until June 21 that Hun Sen formally conceded that they had lost the election. However, fearing that the country would be ungovernable without some semblance of a consensus, Ranariddh consented to allow Hun Sen to assume the role of "co-prime minister." The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, began stepping up their attacks against the fledgling government.
- Despite the prominent roles played by Hun Sen and Ranariddh, there remained a part for Cambodia's consummate politician: Sihanouk himself. Reviled by many, but revered by still more, Sihanouk declared that he had "no right to resist the will of the Cambodian people" who were calling on him to return to the throne. On September 24, 1993, he signed a new constitution and once again assumed the position of King of Cambodia. His powers, however, were limited. Under the terms of the constitution, the king was selected by a five-member throne council. In poor health, Sihanouk spent much of his time outside the country, seeking medical treatment, and the majority of power remained in the hands of the two Prime Ministers.
- The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, continued their attacks, routinely targeting civilians, and sowing land mines in rural areas. They still enforced their policies through mass murder: In October 1994, for example, a group of seventy villagers in Battambang province were captured by the guerrillas, who opened fire on them for no apparent reason. Fifty were killed.
- Still, it was clear that the balance of power had shifted. Isolated diplomatically and economically, the Khmer Rouge at last began to disintegrate. Defections took a heavy toll on their ranks in the wake of the 1993 elections. In August 1996, Ieng Sary, one of the highest ranking members of the Khmer Rouge (by some accounts second or third in rank, below Pol Pot) defected to the government in exchange for amnesty, taking many of his soldiers with him.
- Unfortunately, violence between the factions in Phnom Penh escalated drastically as the Khmer Rouge disintegrated. Hun Sen still controlled the strongest segment of the military, and he did not hesitate to exploit his power. In one particularly brutal attack, dozens of supporters of a popular opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, were killed in a grenade attack on a peaceful demonstration in Phnom Penh in March 1997. The violence underscored a disturbing truth: the demise of the Khmer Rouge would not necessarily mean the onset of peace.
- In June 1997, rumors began to suggest that several more high-ranking Khmer Rouge officials were considering peace negotiations. Determined to continue fighting, Pol Pot responded in typical fashion: He executed his longtime Defense Minister, Son Sen, and ten members of Son Sen's family. The execution further splintered the remaining guerrillas. It was Pol Pot's final mistake: the last of his devout followers could no longer deny the brutality and futility of their leader's methods. Pol Pot was effectively overthrown by an internal rebellion in the fall of 1997, and was "convicted" in a Khmer Rouge show trial. Confined to "house arrest" in the last enclave of Khmer Rouge control, he died on April 15, 1998. Official accounts claimed that he succumbed to illness. Others suggested that he was murdered by his former followers.
- In Phnom Penh, meanwhile, the collapse of the Khmer Rouge led to a cynical contest between Ranariddh and Hun Sen. Each man courted the defecting Khmer Rouge, knowing that the last of the guerrillas could tip the balance of power in his favor.
- In July 1997 Hun Sen dispensed with the any pretense of cooperation. He overthrew Ranariddh in a coup. Ranariddh went into exile, while a handful of outnumbered, outgunned soldiers held on to a small stretch of territory close to the Thai border. Meanwhile, the UN estimated that at least 90 members of Ranariddh's party were murdered during and immediately after the coup.
- The coup, however, once again left Cambodia diplomatically isolated. Under a Japanese-brokered peace plan, Ranariddh was tried in absentia on the Hun Sen government's charges that he was conspiring with the Khmer Rouge and smuggling arms; after his conviction, he was pardoned by the King and allowed to return to Cambodia to participate in the elections scheduled for July 1998. However, Hun Sen's forces continued their campaign of intimidation: A dozen opposition candidates were murdered in the weeks preceding the elections. The violence made a mockery of the international community's pledges to uphold "free and fair" elections. Hun Sen won the elections, but the opposition protested the results. Again responding with force, Hun Sen dispatched riot police to quell the protests. At least 18 persons were killed. The protests, however, brought the country's government to a virtual halt. In November of 1998, an agreement was reached under which Hun Sen became the Prime Minister, while Ranariddh accepted a position as President of the National Assembly.

Chronology by JT-Heather

2005-06-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

Chronology: Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists


Ref from Script	Chronology	What occurred
PRE-EXPEDITION
p. 93 XS	Before the genisis of man	Xu S states that the diffuse and the chaotic infinity of the sea has been there since
		before the genesis of man and his brain

p.89 XS	8 years ago (1978)	XS leaves Cambodia
p.89 XS	25 hrs, 8 yrs ago (1978)	XS Flies from Bangkok to the U.S.

p. 82 CvS	6 a.m. in the early 1980's	Time Toni wakes up

p. 82 CvS	7 a.m. in the early 1980's	Time Toni has to be at the University

p. 82 CvS	daybreak in the early 1980's	Toni and Carla's days start

p.83 CvS	September Evening (1985)	Toni, Carla, Field Marshall & his Concubine are in the Abijan, Ebrie Lagoon, Ivory Coast

P.11 LM	Just Over a Year Ago (October 1985)	The geologists got the idea of organizing an expedition in tropical territory

P. 17 JC	A Year Ago (October 1985)	The study submitted to the National Research Centre was on the gradual transformation
		and erosion effects of river waters

p.20 RP	Just Over a Year Ago (October 1985)	Received authorization from the NRC to travel to tropical territory.
		Toni vS was appointed lead

p.34 NO	Last Fall (October 1985)	LM submitted the paper written for the Geology Department. Obligatory Assignment…

p.20 RP	March, 1986	The date the geologists intended to leave for the Sudan

APRIL
p.21 RP / p.12 LM	April 15 (1986)	Left Minnesota for Khartoum, Sudan, Africa after delays of never ending series of procedures

p.90 XS	April 15 (1986)	Beginning of Rainy Season. Raining upon the Geologists arrival
p.45 NO	April 15 (1986)	Toni Vs in perfect health at time of departure

p.28 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	Six months = Length of expected Expedition
P.13 LM	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	The geologists were going to have to spell each other for 6 months…
p.28 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	Day after day, the geologists saw each other
p.29 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	Day and night, the rain followed the geologists incessantly
p.30 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	Day and night, the geologists had to spell each other - filling the sorting chamber by hand.
p.31 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	One day to the next', David L states, 'Were we to expect to find him dead because
		he was writing a letter?'
p.64 NO/JC	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	Everyday for all six months it rained constantly

p.18 JC	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	All six months of the expedition - it rained
p. 31 DL	April 15 - October 15 (1986)	So many days, so many wks - Toni vS announced his death before all the rest

p. 47+ JC	April 15 - end of August (1986)	The geologists state that the radio set wasn't working because of the tropical rains

p.55 JC	approx. April 29 (1986)	second week in Khartoum Jason Cassilly asked Toni to authorize SLP's return to the U.S
	approx. April 29 (1986)	Toni vS stated they had to move on

P.13 LM	End of April (1986)	Toni van Saikin decided to change the itinerary and the dates they'd agreed upon…
P.13 LM	End of April (1986)	Toni vS decided to travel up to Cambodia in Early May

p.69 NO	end of April (1986)	Two weeks from their arrival, everyone recognizes that the expedition is bound to fail

MAY
P.13 LM / p.23 RP	Early May (1986)	Flew farther East for the Mekong, Cambodia
p.23 RP	May 21 (1986)	Left for the Mekong - rains identical. Downpours.
P.16 JC	May (1986)	Arriving in Cambodia, Toni vS started writing
p. 47+ JC	May (1986)	The radio set wasn't working because of the tropical rains
p.23 RP	approx. May 30 (1986)	Set up operations at Prak-Kek, not far from border
p. 69 NO	end of May (1986)	A month, a month and a half after leaveing the U.S, everyone has lost sense of time.
		Itinerary is changed
JUNE
LM , RP, NO p.47	June (1986)	In the inquiry - Nikols O states this is the date in which the men claim they
		would have known it was impossible to get to Phnom-Penh, to send a
		telegram to the University to inform them that something was wrong, because of the
		roads, mines, amputees, corpses, etc…

LM , RP, NO p.50	June (1986)	Nikols O says the men could not have known this information by then

JULY
P.14 LM	July (1986)	From July on, it isvery difficult for the geologists to place the events in chronological order.
P.11 LM	July (1986)	Geologists noticed Toni van Saikin writing assiduously, every evening - late into the night
p.18 JC	July (1986)	As early as July, the geologists knew that this expedition would be a failure.

p.23 RP	Mid July (1986)	Sent meteorologist, SLP, back to the USA. Reason: rain made him depressed.

p.23 RP	Mid-July - early Aug (1986)	Terminating SLP's contract entailed 3 weeks of admin hassles.

p. 45 NO	July 15 (1986)	3 months later, in Prak-Kek, Phnom-Penh, Toni vS is still in perfect health.

AUGUST
p. 53 NO	Mid - End of August (1986)	The days preceding Toni vS's death there were no signs.
		He was the same as usual. Strange

p.32 DL	Between August 28 - September 3 (1986)	That particular night, TvS would get up without anyone hearing him…

	Between August 28 - September 3 (1986)	Reported Death of Toni van Saiken

p.94 XS	Between August 28 - September 3 (1986)	The day of Toni vS's death, he was writing this letter to himself, for the day when he might
		return to this god-forsaken part of the world, far from all landmarks, on the banks of this
		river for having written these lines…

p.73 NO/DL	Between August 28 - September 3 (1986)	The hours and days that followed Toni vS's death, everyone knew he was dead,
		no one said it

p.42 NO	End of August (1986)	Counting the days between the reported death of Toni vS and the arrival of Xu S,
		takes us to back to the end of August - which therefore concludes that
		David L's setting Toni vS's death at September 22 is incorrect and that the men
		had lost all sense of time

p. 47 NO	approx. September 1 (1986)	Geologists get in touch with the University

p.19 JC	approx. September 10 (1986)	Engineer Xu Sojen was sent to the site - more than 10 days between the time the
		geologists reported TvS' death
SEPTEMBER
p.32 DL	between September 1 -10 (1986)	The Geologist wait for Xu Sojen to arrive.
p.32 DL	between September 1 -10 (1986)	Several days went by where David L stood…

p.47 NO	September (1986)	Nikols O states that the geologists claim that Toni vS died in September

p. 47 NO/JC	September (1986)	Until September, no one tried to get in touch with University - radio set was not working
	September (1986)	Radio set Working - the geologists radio the University

p. 42 NO	Monday, September 8 (1986)	The University sends Engineer Xu S to Cambodia
p.89 XS	Monday, September 8 (1986)	On this day, Xu S was told about the trip, got his visa, and left for London the same night

p.89 XS	Tuesday, September 9 (1986)	Tuesday afternoon, Xu S flew from London to Pakistan

p.89 XS	Wednesday, September 10 (1986)	3rd day of travelling, Xu S flew from Pakistan to Phnom-Penh in the a.m.
p.89 XS	Wednesday, September 10 (1986)	Xu S is told that the geologists will be waiting for him in Phnom-Penh on this day.
p.89 XS	Wednesday, September 10 (1986)	David L is waiting for Xu S in Phnom-Penh upon his arrival
p.89 XS	Wednesday, September 10 (1986)	Xu S states that it took 3 hours to walk from Phnom-Penh to the geologists site
p. 46 LM		**Lloyd M states it would take 8 hours to walk to Phnom-Penh in the inquiry when
		talking about why they did not go walk to Phnom-Penh to send a telegram

p.89 XS	Mon Sept 8 - 10 (1986)	41 hours = The entire time of XS' journey to the site of Toni vS

p.24 RP	September 10 (1986)	10 days after the geologists radio'd the University, engineer Xu Sojen joined them at the
		campsite and concluded that they had to abandon everythingand go home

p/92 XS	September 10 (1986)	On its' 10th day of decomposition, Toni vS' body was in such state that
		…the drops carved crevices down his cheeks

p.94 XS	Bedtime, September 10 (1986)	Xu S went up to the second story, where Toni vS stored his things, and found the pages
		of a letter that he had been writing since his arrival in Cambodia

p.92 XS	September 11 (1986)	The following day after Xu S's arrival, the rain increased

p.81 CvS	September 11 (1986)	Abandoned site and left, bringing Toni vS's bones with them

	Approx. September 15 (1986)	Arrived in US

p. 32 DL	September 22 (1986)	David L claims that in the last week in September, he wrote that Toni vS was dead
		and that the universe was stable

p.42 NO	September 22 (1986)	Nikols O states that Mr. Lenowski sets the date of Toni vS's on this day

FOLLOWING
	Early October 1986	The Hearing w/ Ostwald

P.16 JC / p.26 NO	Early October 1986	At 10 o'clock, the inquiry must be over and everyone will need to vacate this hearing room

p.82 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	Yesterday afternoon, Carla vS had two appointments & an interview

p.81 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	Three accidents occurred since - all at 5 o'clock in the morning.

p.82 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	"This morning" Carla vS has an operation
p.84 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	Today Carla understands why Toni vS liked looking at his face in the water of the lagoon
		"Part of you was already there…already drowned…"

p. 82 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	"Tomorrow" Toni vS' sternum will be in bronze box and it will be announced that the
		new wing of the Science Building will be named after Toni vS

p. 82 CvS	Arrival back to the U.s. onwards…	"In a little while" Men are coming to pick up Toni vS's bones and take him away from Carla

EXTRAS
p.86 CvS	Forever	Carla vS wants Toni vS to tell her the time, forever…

p.93 XS	Looking at Infinity	Xu S concludes that Toni vS didn't exist, he pre-existed, he didn't pre-exist, he existed
		...it all comes downto the same thing when you are looking at infinity.

Tonle Sap 2

2005-06-28T16:43:00.000-07:00