Roumanian Fairy Tales   By: Mary J. [Editor] Safford

COLLECTED

BY

MITE KREMNITZ.

ADAPTED AND ARRANGED

BY

J. M. PERCIVAL

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1885

COPYRIGHT, 1885,

BY

HENRY HOLT & CO.

PREFACE.

This collection contains translations of Roumanian tales which, however, comprise but a small portion of the inexhaustible treasure that exists in the nation. The originals are scattered throughout Roumanian literature. The finest collection is Herr P. Ispirescu's, from which the stories numbered in the contents 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, and 17 in the present volume have been selected. No. 11 is taken from Herr T. M. Arsenie's small collection; the others have been drawn from the columns of the periodical Convorbiri Literare . Of these Nos. 5 and 14 are by the pen of Herr J. Creanga, No. 9 is the work of Herr Miron Pompilin, while Nos. 1, 3, 7, 16 and 18 are by Herr Slavice, who wrote No. 15 specially for this volume, in the Roumanian language, just as it was related to him by the peasants.

CONTENTS.

1. STAN BOLOVAN

2. THE WONDERFUL BIRD

3. THE TWINS WITH THE GOLDEN STAR

4. YOUTH WITHOUT AGE AND LIFE WITHOUT DEATH

5. THE LITTLE PURSE WITH TWO HALF PENNIES

6. MOGARZEA AND HIS SON

7. CUNNING ILEANE

8. THE PRINCESS AND THE FISHERMAN

9. LITTLE WILD ROSE

10. THE VOICE OF DEATH

11. THE OLD WOMAN AND THE OLD MAN

12. THE PEA EMPEROR

13. THE MORNING STAR AND THE EVENING STAR

14. THE TWO STEP SISTERS

15. THE POOR BOY

16. MOTHER'S DARLING JACK

17. TELLERCHEN

18. THE FAIRY AURORA

Stan Bolovan.

Once upon a time, something happened. If it hadn't happened, it wouldn't be told.

At the edge of the village, where the peasants' oxen break through the hedges and the neighbors' hogs wallow in the ground under the fences, there once stood a house. In this house lived a man, and the man had a wife; but the wife grieved all day long.

"What troubles you, dear wife, that you sit there drooping like a frost bitten bud in the sunlight?" her husband asked one day. "You have all you need. So be cheerful, like other folks."

"Let me alone, and ask no more questions!" replied the wife, and became still more melancholy than before.

Her husband questioned her the second time, and received the same reply. But, when he asked again, she answered more fully.

"Dear me," she said, "why do you trouble your head about it? If you know, you'll be just sorrowful as I am. It's better for me not to tell you."

But, to this, people will never agree. If you tell a person he must sit still, he is more anxious to move than ever. Stan was now determined to know what was in his wife's mind.

"If you are determined to hear, I'll tell you," said the wife. "There's no luck in the house, husband, there's no luck in the house!"

"Isn't the cow a good one? Are not the fruit trees and bee hives full? Are not the fields fertile?" asked Stan. "You talk nonsense, if you complain of any thing."

"But, husband, we have no children."

Stan understood; and, when a man realizes such a thing, it isn't well. From this time, a sorrowful man and a sorrowful woman lived in the house on the edge of the village. And they were sorrowful because the Lord had given them no children. When the wife saw her husband sad, she grew still more melancholy; and the more melancholy she was, the greater his grief became.